heerfully
suggest going to live in the filthiest parts of the city, working, as
no servant is ever expected to work, for people you don't know!"

"I know it's absurd," Sandy agreed, smiling. Her answer was ready
somewhere in her mind, but she could not quite find it. "But, you see,
that's a new problem," she presently offered, "that's ours to-day, just
as managing your house was Mother's when she married you. Circumstances
have changed. I couldn't ever take up the kitchen question just as it
presents itself to Mother. I--people my age don't believe in a servant
class. They just believe in a division of labor, all dignified. If some
girl I knew, Grace or Betty, say, came into our kitchen--and that
reminds me!" she broke off suddenly.

"Of what?"

"Why, of something Owen--Owen Sargent was saying a few days ago. His
mother's quite daffy about establishing social centers and clubs for
servant girls, you know, and she's gotten into this new thing, a sort
of college for servants. Now I'll ask Owen about it. I'll do that
to-morrow. That's just what I'll do!"

"Tell me about it," her father said. But Alexandra shook her head.

"I don't honestly know anything about it, Dad. But Owen had a lot of
papers and a sort of prospectus. His mother was wishing that she could
try one of the graduates, but she keeps six or seven house servants,
and it wouldn't be practicable. But I'll see. I never thought of us!
And I'll bring Owen home to dinner to-morrow. Is that all right,
Mother?" she asked, as her mother came back into the room.

"Owen? Certainly, dear; we're always glad to see him," Mrs. Salisbury
said, a shade too casually, in a tone well calculated neither to alarm
nor encourage, balanced to keep events uninterruptedly in their natural
course. But Alexandra was too deep in thought to notice a tone.

"You'll see--this is something entirely new, and just what we need!"
she said gaily.

CHAPTER II

The constant visits of Owen Sargent, had he been but a few years older,
and had Sandy been a few years older, would have filled Mrs.
Salisbury's heart with a wild maternal hope. As it was, with Sandy
barely nineteen, and Owen not quite twenty-two, she felt more
tantalizing discomfort in their friendship than satisfaction. Owen was
a dear boy, queer, of course, but fine in every way, and Sandy was
quite the prettiest girl in River Falls; but it was far too soon to
begin to hope that they would do the entirely suitable and a