Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/60

48 "See," she said to the head woman, "Aunt Matilda didn't send me to do things that need teaching. Just tell me the little things—it doesn't matter what—and I'll do them. I can."

How she worked that morning—how she ran on errands—how she carried this and that—how she washed and scrubbed milk pans—and how all her tasks were menial and apparently trivial though entirely necessary, and how the activity and rapidity and unceasingness of them tried her unaccustomed young body, and finally made her limbs ache and her back feel as if it might break at some unexpected moment,—Meg never forgot. But such was the desperation of her indomitable little spirit, and the unconquerable will she had been born with, that when it was over she was no more in the mood for giving up than she had been when she walked in among the workers after her interview with Aunt Matilda.

When dinner-time came she walked up to Mrs. Macartney, the manager of the dairy work, and asked her a question.

"Have I helped you?" she said.

"Yes, you have," said the woman, who was by no means an ill-natured creature for a hard-driven woman. "You've done first-rate."

"Will you tell Aunt Matilda that?" said Meg.