woman to ask a maid the simplest thing in the world, if she is
fairly certain that that maid will be ungracious about it.

"Dear me!" thought Mrs. Salisbury, eating her chop and salad, her
hot muffin and tart without much heart to appreciate these
delicacies, "How much time I have spent in my life, going through
imaginary conversations with maids! Why couldn't I just step to the
pantry door and say, in a matter-of-fact tone, 'I'm afraid I must
ask you to put the sitting-room in order, Justine. Miss Sandy has
apparently forgotten all about it. I'll see that it doesn't occur
again.' And I could add--now that I think of it--'I will pay you for
your extra time, if you like, and if you will remind me at the end
of the month.'"

"Well, she may not like it, but she can't refuse," was her final
summing up. She went out to the kitchen with a deceptive air of
composure.

Justine's occupation, when Mrs. Salisbury found her, strengthened
the older woman's resolutions. The maid, in a silent and spotless
kitchen, was writing a letter. Sheets of paper were strewn on the
scoured white wood of the kitchen table; the writer, her chin cupped
in her hand, was staring dreamily out of the kitchen window. She
gave her mistress an absent smile, then laid down her pen and stood
up.

"I'm writing here," she explained, "so that I can catch the milkman
for the cream."

Mrs. Salisbury knew that it was useless to ask if everything was in