sudden. She longed for Thaddeus, who had remained at the station
collecting the bath-tubs and other luxuries of the baby from the
luggage-van, to come. What did it all mean? Jane and Ellen gone!
New girls in their places!

And then Thaddeus came, and made all plain to the little woman, and
when he was all through she was satisfied. He had discharged the
tyrants, and had supplied their places. The latter was the
important business which had taken him to town.

"But, Teddy," Bessie said, with a smile, when she had heard all,
"how did poor mild little you ever have the courage to face those
two women and give them their discharge?"

Teddy blushed. "I didn't," he answered, meekly; "I wrote it."

Five years have passed since then, and all has gone well. Thaddeus
has remained free, and, as he proudly observes, domestics now
tremble at his approach--that is, all except Norah, who remembers
him as of old. Ellen and Jane are living together in affluence,
having saved their wages for nearly the whole of their term of
"service." Bessie is happy in the possession of two fine boys, to
whom all her attention--all save a little reserved for Thaddeus--is
given; and, as for the dubious, auburn-haired, and distinctly Celtic
Norah, Thaddeus is afraid that she is developing into a "treasure."

"Why do you think so?" Bessie asked him, when he first expressed
that fear.

"Oh, she has the symptoms," returned Thaddeus. "She has taken three