and prints. Madam had made her home for comfort; and the taste
which had marked her other work was here subdued. An old clock ticked
steadily; and if there were no ancient horrors at least the house within
did not belie its serious front. Sally was like a little doll, shrinking
under the weight of such solid comfort, and not yet able to appraise it
in terms of possession and disposal. She was still shy and timid.
Wherever, upon this first entrance, she looked round for encouragement,
she found none. During that first evening she was so miserable that she
could have run away. She was like a child that goes for the first time
to school, and feels bereft of every familiar support and association.

But in the morning Sally found everything better. She saw Gaga's
doctor, and she talked to the three servants. She telephoned to Miss
Summers and asked her to come to the house in the afternoon. She wrote
to Mrs. Perce and to Toby. She nursed Gaga and refused to see the dead
body of his mother. Every minute which she spent in the house increased
her familiarity with it; and her youth and smallness captivated the
three middle-aged servants, who were glad to have somebody there whom
they could advise. Sally had long been able to behave as somebody other
than a workgirl, and the servants were so well-behaved that they did not
make any attempt to be too much at ease with her. Sally, moreover,
looked down with all the contempt of her class upon women who worked in
domestic service--SKIVVIES! She was drawlingly refined with them, but
not grotesquely so, and they respected her.

First in importance among the things which Sally had to seem to arrange
was the funeral. She handed all the details to the undertaker. This
showed her to be a general. From the first she followed the only
possible plan--to give _carte blanche_ to those who had to deal with
matters of urgency. Gaga was all the time ill. His mother's death had so
broken down his strength and his self-control that Sally often found him
weak with crying; a pathetic figure, in bed, woebegone and feeble. His
delight at seeing her was so violent that he had covered her hands with
kisses before he fell back exhausted upon his pillow. He constantly
called for her. The servants noticed with clucked tongues how feverish
was his devotion; but they also recognised Sally's patience. Sally was
angelic to Gaga. She tended him so protectively that one might have
thought her loving. And in the r