more kindness than they gave me. At last I said I'd try a place where
there were children an' maybe they'd like me. Mrs. Smith was dumb with
surprise when I told her I must leave. 'Leave!' she says. 'We're
perfectly satisfied. You're a very good girl, Almira.' 'It's the first
time you've ever told me so,' I says, 'an' I think a change is best all
round.' She urged, but I was set, an' I went from there when the month
was up.

"Well, my eyes stayed bad for sewing, an' I must keep on at housework.
I've been in seven places in six years. I could have stayed in every
one, an' about every one I could tell you things that make it plain
enough why a self-respecting girl would rather try something else. I
don't talk or think nonsense about wanting to be one of the family. I
don't. I'd much rather keep to myself. But out of these seven places
there was just one in which the mistress seemed to think I was a human
being with something in me the same as in her. I've been underfed an'
worked half to death in two of the houses. The mistress expected just so
much, an' if it failed she stormed an' went on an' said I was a shirk
an' good for nothing an' all that. There was only one of them that had a
decently comfortable room or that thought to give me a chance at a book
or paper now an' then. As long as I had a trade I was certain of my
evenings an' my Sundays. Now I'm never certain of anything. I'm not a
shirk. I'm quick an' smart, an' I know I turn off work. In ten hours I
earn more than I ever get. But I begin my day at six an' in summer at
five, an' it's never done before ten an' sometimes later. This place I'm
in now seems to have some kind of fairness about it, an' Mrs. Henshaw
said yesterday, 'You can't tell the comfort it is to me, Almira, to have
some one in the house I can trust. I hope you will be comfortable an'
happy enough to stay with us.' 'I'll stay till you tell me to go,' I
says, an' I meant it. My little room looks like home an' is warm and
comfortable. My kitchen is bright an' light, an' she's told me always to
use the dining-room in the evenings for myself an' for friends. She
tries to give me fair hours. If there were more like her there'd be more
willing for such work, but she's the first one I've heard of that tries
to be just. That's something that women don't know much about. When they
do there'll be better times all round."

Here stands the record of a woman who has become invaluable to the
family she serves