The pile
of washing had grown, and the woman's face was grey with fatigue.
Geake, as he made out the voucher, cast about for a polite mode of
hinting that this kind of thing must not go on. Nevertheless it was
Naomi who began.
"Look here," she said, as he put down the voucher; "there ain't goin'
to be no more prayin', eh?"
"Why, to be sure there is," he answered with a show of great
cheerfulness; and reached for a chair.
"I'd liefer you didn't. I don't want it. I don't hold by any o't.
You'm very kind," she went on, her voice trembling for an instant and
then recovering its firmness, "and I reckon it soothed mother. But I
reckon it don't soothe me. I reckon it rubs me the wrong way. There's
times, when I hears a body prayin', that I wishes we was Papists again
and worshipped images, that I might throw stones at 'em!"
She paused, looked up into Geake's devouring eyes, and added, with a
poor attempt at a laugh:
"So you see, I'm wicked, an' don't want to be saved."
Then the man broke forth:
"Saved? No, I reckon you don't! Wicked? Iss, I reckon you be! But
saved you shall be--ay, if you was twice so wicked.
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