Of all the work in the world she hated sweeping most, declaring to herself that doing a portage in blazing sunshine, with a load of furs on one’s back, was play to sweeping.  The dust got on her face, it walked up her nostrils and down her throat, making her feel as if she must in self-defence throw down her broom and fly outside, where the clean, strong wind was blowing.  But it was not like her to give up, when once she had set her hand to anything; so she finished the sweeping, then fled outside to let the dust blow away from her face and hair while the thick atmosphere in the room she had left cleared enough to admit of the next set of operations.

Peter M’Crawney was talking to Phil on the other side of the fence, and from several inarticulate growls which reached her ears she judged that Simon must be there too.  Then she heard Phil start on a description of what had taken place at the captain’s reception on the ocean-going steamer, and judged herself safe for another ten minutes, for well she knew that he would not spare them full details, especially of the monkey trick he had played on Nick Jones.

In ten minutes one could do a great deal if one tried; so back again she hurried, and set to work dusting the furniture with an old cotton jacket of Peter’s, because she could find no duster.  The buttons got in the way sometimes, but that was a minor detail, and it did not do to be over-particular about trifles when one was in a hurry.  The dusting was done, and she had started work on the dirty dishes, when the door of the inner room came open with a jerk, and Mrs. M’Crawney, very much in undress, poked her head out.

“Miss Radford, is it you?” she cried in profound astonishment.  “I couldn’t think what the noise was out here.  If it had been night I should have settled it in my own mind that Peter and Simon had been having too much to drink, though no two men could be more sober than they are.”

“A good thing they are, for there must be terrible temptations for men living in such discomfort to drown their troubles in strong drink,” Katherine answered severely.  Then she asked in a more kindly tone:  “Do you feel better this morning?”

“Oh, I am well enough, thank you!  It isn’t my body; bodies don’t matter unless they ache, which mine doesn’t, the saints be praised!” Mrs. M’Crawney exclaimed with pious fervour, as she emerged from her bedroom and seated herself in all her squalid untidiness on the nearest chair.

“If it is not your body, what is it, then?  Do you think you are going out of your mind?” demanded Katherine sharply; and turning from her dish-washing, she treated the woman to a calm appraising stare, which took in every detail, from the unbrushed hair straggling over the ragged nightdress to the unwashed, naked feet.

“Going out of my mind?” screamed Mrs. M’Crawney in furious indignation.  “Indeed no!  I’ve got my wits as well as you’ve got your own, Miss Katherine Radford; more so, I should say, for I have a deal too much sense to go slaving myself to death doing work that no one is likely to say ‘thank you’ for.”