o the morning's work.

Immediately after lunch she interrogated Justine. The girl was drying
glasses, each one emerging like a bubble of hot and shining crystal
from her checked glass towel.

"Justine," began the mistress, "have we been getting our groceries from
Lewis & Sons lately?"

Justine placidly referred to an account book which she took from a
drawer under the pantry shelves.

"Our last order was August eleventh," she announced.

Something in her unembarrassed serenity annoyed Mrs. Salisbury.

"May I ask why?" she suggested sharply.

"Well, they are a long way from here," Justine said, after a second's
thought, "and they are very expensive grocers, Mrs. Salisbury. Of
course, what they have is of the best, but they cater to the very
richest families, you know--firms like Lewis & Sons aren't very much
interested in the orders they receive from--well, from upper
middle-class homes, people of moderate means. They handle hotels and
the summer colony at Burning Woods."

Justine paused, a little uncertain of her terms, and Mrs. Salisbury
interposed an icy question.

"May I ask where you HAVE transferred my trade?"

"Not to any one place," the girl answered readily and mildly. But a
little resentful color had crept into her cheeks. "I pay as I go, and
follow the bargains," she explained. "I go to market twice a week, and
send enough home to make it worth while for the tradesman. You couldn't
market as I do, Mrs. Salisbury, but the tradespeople rather expect it
of a maid. Sometimes I gather an assortment of vegetables into my
basket, and get them to make a price on the whole. Or, if there is a
sale at any store, I go there, and order a dozen cans, or twenty pounds
of whatever they are selling."

Mrs. Salisbury was not enjoying this revelation. The obnoxious term
"upper middle class" was biting like an acid upon her pride. And it was
further humiliating to contemplate her maid as a driver of bargains, as
dickering for baskets of vegetables.

"The best is always the cheapest in the long run, whatever it may cost,
Justine," she said, with dignity. "We may not be among the richest
families in town," she was unable to refrain from adding, "but it is
rather amusing to hear you speak of the family as upper middle class!"

"I only meant the--the sort of ordering we did," Justine hastily
interposed. "I meant from the grocer's point of view."

"Well, Mr. Lewis sold groceries to my grandmother before I was
married