ale of serges this morning.
I went in, and got two dress lengths for my sister's children. If I can
find a good dressmaker, I really believe I'll have one myself. I
think"--Justine would eye her vegetables thoughtfully--"I think I'll go
up now and have my bath, and cook these later."

Mrs. Salisbury could reasonably find no fault with this. But an
indescribable irritation possessed her whenever such a conversation
took place. The coolness!--she would say to herself, as she went
upstairs--wandering about to shops and greenhouses, and quietly
deciding to take a bath before luncheon! Why, Mrs. Salisbury had had
maids who never once asked for the use of the bathroom, although they
had been for months in her employ.

No, she could not attack Justine on this score. But she began to
entertain the girl with enthusiastic accounts of the domestics of
earlier and better days.

"My mother had a girl," she said, "a girl named Norah O'Connor. I
remember her very well. She swept, she cleaned, she did the entire
washing for a family of eight, and she did all the cooking. And such
cookies, and pies, and gingerbread as she made! All for sixteen dollars
a month. We regarded Norah as a member of the family, and, even on her
holidays she would take three or four of us, and walk with us to my
father's grave; that was all she wanted to do. You don't see her like
in these days, dear old Norah!"

Justine listened respectfully, silently. Once, when her mistress was
enlarging upon the advantages of slavery, the girl commented mildly:

"Doesn't it seem a pity that the women of the United States didn't
attempt at least to train all those Southern colored people for house
servants? It seems to be their natural element. They love to live in
white families, and they have no caste pride. It would seem to be such
a waste of good material, letting them worry along without much
guidance all these years. It almost seems as if the Union owed it to
them."

"Dear me, I wish somebody would! I, for one, would love to have dear
old mammies around me again," Mrs. Salisbury said, with fervor. "They
know their place," she added neatly.

"The men could be butlers and gardeners and coachmen," pursued Justine.

"Yes, and with a lot of finely trained colored women in the market,
where would you girls from the college be?" the other woman asked, not
without a spice of mischievous enjoyment.

"We would be a finer type of servant, for more fastidious people,"