submitted the problem to Miss Slome, who solved it at once. She had,
in some respects, a masterly brain, and her executive abilities were
somewhat thrown away in her comparatively humble sphere.

"You must have the house cleaned," said she. "Let the woman you get
to clean stay over until you come home. She won't be afraid to go
home alone afterwards. Those kind of people never are. I suppose you
will get Mrs. Addix?"

"They tell me she is about the best woman for house-cleaning," said
Harry, rather helplessly. He was so unaccustomed to even giving a
thought to household details, that he had a vague sense of self-pity
because he was now obliged to do so. His lost Abby occasionally, he
believed, had employed this Mrs. Addix, but she had never troubled
him about it.

It thus happened that every evening little Maria Edgham sat guarded,
as it were, by Mrs. Addix. Mrs. Addix was of the poor-white race,
like the Manns--in fact, she was distantly related to them. They were
nearly all distantly related, which may have accounted for their
partial degeneracy. Mrs. Addix, however, was a sort of anomaly.
Coming, as she did, of a shiftless, indolent family, she was yet a
splendid worker. She seemed tireless. She looked positively radiant
while scrubbing, and also more intelligent. The moment she stopped
work, she looked like an automatic doll which had run down: all
consciousness of self, or that which is outside self, seemed to leave
her face; it was as if her brain were in her toiling arms and hands.
Moreover, she always went to sleep immediately after Harry had gone
and Maria was left alone with her. She sat in her chair and breathed
heavily, with her head tipped idiotically over one shoulder.