dishes, or sometimes set the table, and make the beds, if there was
company--"

"That may be," Mrs. Salisbury had the satisfaction of answering
coldly. "Perhaps she did, although _I_ never remember hearing her
say so. But my mother always had colored servants, and I never saw
her so much as dust the piano!"

"I suppose we couldn't simplify things, Sally? Cut out some of the
extra touches?" suggested the head of the house.

Mrs. Salisbury merely shook her head, compressing her lips firmly.
It was quite difficult enough to keep things "nice," with two
growing boys in the family, without encountering such opposition as
this. A day or two later she went into New Troy, the nearest big
city, and came back triumphantly with Lizzie.

And at first Lizzie really did seem perfection. It was some weeks
before Mrs. Salisbury realized that Lizzie was not truthful;
absolutely reliable in money matters, yet Lizzie could not be
believed in the simplest statement. Tasteless oatmeal, Lizzie glibly
asseverated, had been well salted; weak coffee, or coffee as strong
as brown paint, were the fault of the pot. Lizzie, rushing through
dinner so that she might get out; Lizzie throwing out cold
vegetables that "weren't worth saving"; Lizzie growing snappy and
noisy at the first hint of criticism, somehow seemed worse sometimes
than no servant at all.

"I wonder--if we moved into New Troy, Kane," Mrs. Salisbury mused,
"and got one of those wonderful modern apartments, with a gas stove,