ften staying weeks at a time.

The eternal "good wages to right party" of the advertisements was our
inducement also, but, apparently, there were no "right parties!"

The previous incumbent, having departed in a fit of temper at half an
hour's notice, and left me, so to speak, "in the air," with dinner
guests on the horizon a day ahead, I betook myself to an intelligence
office, where, strangely enough, there seems to be no intelligence,
and grasped the first chance of relief.

Nothing more unpromising could possibly be imagined. The new maid was
sad, ugly of countenance, far from strong physically, and in every way
hopeless and depressing. She listened, unemotionally, to my glowing
description of the situation. Finally she said, "Ay tank Ay try it."

She came, looked us over, worked a part of a week, and announced that
she couldn't stay. "Ay can't feel like home here," she said. "Ay am
not satisfied."

She had been in her last place for three years, and left because "my's
lady, she go to Europe." I persuaded her to try it for a while longer,
and gave her an extra afternoon or two off, realising that she must be
homesick.

After keeping us on tenter-hooks for two weeks, she sent for her
trunk. I discovered that she was a fine laundress, carefully washing
and ironing the things which were too fine to go into the regular
wash; a most excellent cook, her kitchen and pantry were at all times
immaculate; she had no followers, and few friends; meals were ready
on the stroke of the hour, and she had the gift of management.

Offset to this was a furious temper, an atmosphere of gloom and
depression which permeated the house and made us feel funereal,
impertinence of a quality difficult to endure, and the callous,
unfeeling, almost inhuman characteristics which often belong in a high
degree to the Swedes.

For weeks I debated with myself whether or not I could stand it to
have her in the house. I have spent an hour on my own back porch, when
I should have been at work, because I was afraid to pass through the
room which she happened to be cleaning. Times without number, a crisp
muffin, or a pot of perfect coffee, has made me postpone speaking the
fateful words which would have separated us. She sighed and groaned
and wept at her work, worried about it, and was a fiend incarnate if
either of us was five minutes late for dinner. We often hurried
through the evening meal so as to leave her free for her evening out,
even t