posed
to arrange things exactly to suit yourself, no matter if nobody else
has ever done things your way from the beginning of time!"

"That's a lovely theory, Auntie," said Alexandra, "but this is an
entirely different situation."

For answer Mrs. Otis merely compressed her lips, and flung the pink
yarn that she was knitting into a baby's sacque steadily over her
flashing needles.

"Where's Justine now?" she asked, after a moment.

"In her room," Mrs. Salisbury answered.

"No; she's gone for a walk, Mother," Sandy said. "She loves to walk in
the rain, and she wanted to change her library book, and send a
telegram or something--"

"Just like a guest in the house!" Mrs. Otis observed, with fine scorn.
"Surely she asked you if she might go, Sally?"

"No. Her--her work is done. She--comes and goes that way."

"Without saying a word? And who answers the door?" Mrs. Otis was
unaffectedly astonished now.

"She does if she's in the house, Mattie, just as she answers the
telephone. But she's only actually on duty one afternoon a week."

"You see, the theory is, Auntie," Sandy supplied, "that persons on our
income--I won't say of our position, for Mother hates that--but on our
income, aren't supposed to require formal door-answering very often."

Mrs. Otis, her knitting suspended, moved her round eyes from mother to
daughter and back again. She did not say a word, but words were not
needed.

"I know it seems outrageous, in some ways, Mattie," Mrs. Salisbury
presently said, with a little nervous laugh. "But what is one to do?"

"Do?" echoed her sister roundly. "DO? Well, I know I keep six house
servants, and have always kept at least three, and I never heard the
equal of THIS in all my days! Do?--I'd show you what I'd do fast
enough! Do you suppose I'd pay a maid thirty-seven dollars a month to
go tramping off to the library in the rain, and to tell me what my
social status was? Why, Evelyn keeps two, and pays one eighteen and one
fifteen, and do you suppose she'd allow either such liberties? Not at
all. The downstairs girl wears a nice little cap and apron--'Madam,
dinner is served,' she says--"

"Yes, but Evelyn's had seven cooks since she was married," Sandy, who
was not a great admirer of her young married cousin, put in here, "and
Arthur said that she actually cried because she could not give a decent
dinner!"

"Evelyn's only a beginner, dear," said Evelyn's mother sharply, "but
she has the right spirit.