down with much unnecessary noise, and Doris, looking at her in alarm,
saw that her expression was sulky and her eyes red. When the girl had
departed, Mrs. Meadows said with resignation--

"There! that one will give me notice to-morrow!"

"Well, I'm sure you could easily get a better!" said her husband
sharply.

Doris shook her head.

"The fourth in six months!" she said, sighing. "And she really is a good
girl."

"I suppose, as usual, she complains of me!" The voice was that of an
injured man.

"Yes, dear, she does! They all do. You give them a lot of extra work
already, and all these things you have been buying lately--oh, Arthur,
if you _wouldn't_ buy things!--mean more work. You know that copper
coal-scuttle you sent in yesterday?"

"Well, isn't it a beauty?--a real Georgian piece!" cried Meadows,
indignantly.

"I dare say it is. But it has to be cleaned. When it arrived Jane came
to see me in this room, shut the door, and put her back against it
'There's another of them beastly copper coal-scuttles come!' You should
have seen her eyes blazing. 'And I should like to know, ma'am, who's
going to clean it--'cos I can't.' And I just had to promise her it might