She regarded him gratefully.  “You’re a real nice boy, George,” she said, “and there ain’t going to be no secrets between us.  If you wet your feet, or tear your clothes, don’t try to hide it.  Don’t keep nothing from me and I won’t keep nothing from you.  Now I’ll tell you who I am and all about it.  I am Mrs. Peter Harris, of Owen Sound, Ontario, and I have three sons here in the West.  They’ve all done well, fur as money goes.  I came up to visit them.  I came from Bert’s here.  I couldn’t stand the way Bert’s folks live.  Mind you, they burn their lights all night, and they told me it doesn’t cost a cent more.  Land o’ liberty!  They can’t fool me.  If lights burn, someone pays—­and the amount of hired help they keep is something scandalous.  Et, that is Bert’s wife, is real smart, and they have two hired girls, besides their own two girls, and they get in a woman to wash besides.  I wanted them to let the two girls go while I was there, but no, sir!  Et says, ‘Grandma, you didn’t come here to work, you must just rest.’  They wouldn’t let me do a thing, and that brazen hired girl—­the housemaid, they call her—­one day even made my bed; and, mind you, George, she put the narrow hem on the sheet to the top, and she wasn’t a bit ashamed when I told her.  She said she hoped it didn’t make me feel that I was standin’ on my head all night; and the way that woman hung out the clothes was a perfect scandal!” Her voice fell to an awed whisper.  “She hangs the underwear in plain sight.  I ain’t never been used to the like of that!  I could not stay.  Bert is kind enough, so is Et, and they have one girl, Maud, that I really do like.  She is twenty-one, but, of course, brought up the way she has been, she is awful ignorant for that age.  Mind you, that girl had never turned the heel of a stocking until I got her at it, but Maud can learn.  I’d take that girl quick, and bring her up like my own, if Bert would let me.  Well, anyway, I could not put up with the way they live, and I just ran away.”

“You ran away!” echoed Shaw.  “They’ll be looking for you!”

“Let ’em look!” said the old lady, grimly.  “They won’t ever find me here.”

“I’ll hide you in the haymow, and if they come in here to search for you I’ll declare I never knew you—­I am prepared to do desperate things,” Shaw declared.

“George, if they ever get in here—­that is, Et anyway—­she’ll know who did the fixin’ up.  There ain’t many that know how to do this Rocky Road to Dublin that is on your lounge.  Et would know who’d been here.”

“That settles it!” declared Shaw.  “Et shall not enter.  If Et gets in it shall be over my prostrate form, but maybe it would be better for you to take the Rocky Road with you to the hayloft!”