they're uppish, and they have no idea of anything but third-rate
boarding-house cooking, and they're always hoping to get married, so
that, really, you have no peace of your life with them."

"And it never seems to you that the whole relation is wrong?" I asked.

"What relation?"

"That between maid and mistress, the hirer and the hireling."

"Why, good gracious!" she burst out. "Didn't Christ himself say that the
laborer was worthy of his hire? And how would you get your work done, if
you didn't pay for it?"

"It might be done for you, when you could not do it yourself, from
affection."

"From affection!" she returned, with the deepest derision. "Well, I
rather think I _shall_ have to do it myself if I want it done
from affection! But I suppose you think I _ought_ to do it
myself, as the Altrurian ladies do! I can tell you that in America it
would be impossible for a lady to do her own work, and there are no
intelligence-offices where you can find girls that want to work for love.
It's as broad as it's long."

"It's simply business," her husband said.

They were right, my dear friend, and I was wrong, strange as it must
appear to you. The tie of service, which we think as sacred as the tie of
blood, can be here only a business relation, and in these conditions