“I hope so; and I wish I could help to bring that happy day at once!”

For the first time Hepsey smiled, as she said gratefully, “De Lord bress you for dat wish, chile.”  Then, dropping suddenly into her old, quiet way, she added, turning to her work: 

“Now you tote up de dinner, and I’ll be handy by to ’fresh your mind ’bout how de dishes goes, for missis is bery ’ticular, and don’t like no ’stakes in tendin’.”

Thanks to her own neat-handed ways and Hepsey’s prompting through the slide, Christie got on very well; managed her salver dexterously, only upset one glass, clashed one dish-cover, and forgot to sugar the pie before putting it on the table; an omission which was majestically pointed out, and graciously pardoned as a first offence.

By seven o’clock the ceremonial was fairly over, and Christie dropped into a chair quite tired out with frequent pacings to and fro.  In the kitchen she found the table spread for one, and Hepsey busy with the boots.

“Aren’t you coming to your dinner, Mrs. Johnson?” she asked, not pleased at the arrangement.

“When you’s done, honey; dere’s no hurry ’bout me.  Katy liked dat way best, and I’se used ter waitin’.”

“But I don’t like that way, and I won’t have it.  I suppose Katy thought her white skin gave her a right to be disrespectful to a woman old enough to be her mother just because she was black.  I don’t; and while I’m here, there must be no difference made.  If we can work together, we can eat together; and because you have been a slave is all the more reason I should be good to you now.”

If Hepsey had been surprised by the new girl’s protest against being made a boot-jack of, she was still more surprised at this sudden kindness, for she had set Christie down in her own mind as “one ob dem toppin’ smart ones dat don’t stay long nowheres.”  She changed her opinion now, and sat watching the girl with a new expression on her face, as Christie took boot and brush from her, and fell to work energetically, saying as she scrubbed: 

“I’m ashamed of complaining about such a little thing as this, and don’t mean to feel degraded by it, though I should by letting you do it for me.  I never lived out before:  that’s the reason I made a fuss.  There’s a polish, for you, and I’m in a good humor again; so Mr. Stuart may call for his boots whenever he likes, and we’ll go to dinner like fashionable people, as we are.”

There was something so irresistible in the girl’s hearty manner, that Hepsey submitted at once with a visible satisfaction, which gave a relish to Christie’s dinner, though it was eaten at a kitchen table, with a bare-armed cook sitting opposite, and three rows of burnished dish-covers reflecting the dreadful spectacle.