references and no character."

"Maybe she has got her character in her pocket, you don't know," broke
out the father. "That's where some girls carry their character till
it's worn out."

"I'll give her a character," said Sylvia. "She is a lady, if she is a
servant."

"That's just what I don't want, Sylvia," said Mrs. Thorne, with a
plaintive inflection, "a ladylike servant."

"Oh, well, we must try her. How's the girl to get a character if nobody
tries her? And she's real splendid, I think, going off to get money to
help her mother. And I'm sure she's had some great sorrow or
disappointment, you know. She's got such a wistful look in her face,
and when I spoke about Drogheda she said----"

"There you are again!" exclaimed the father. "You'll have a heroine to
make your bed every morning. But you'd better keep your drawers locked
for all that."

"Now, I think that's mean!" and the young girl tried to look stern. But
the severity vanished when Mr. Kirk, of the senior class in Highland
College, came up to inform Miss Thorne that the young people were about
getting up a conundrum party. Miss Sylvia accepted the invitation to
join in that diluted recreation, saying, as she departed, "Let's try
her anyway."

"If she wants her I suppose I shall have to take her, but I wish she
had more sense than to go to the steerage for a servant."

"She could hardly find one in the cabin," ventured Mr. Thorne.

So it happened that, on arrival in New York, Margaret Byrne was
installed as second girl at the Thornes'. For in an American home the
authority is often equitably divided--the mother has the name of ruling
the household which the daughter actually governs.

II.

How much has the setting to do with a romance? The old tales had
castles environed with savage forests and supplied with caves and
underground galleries leading to where it was necessary to go in the
novelist's emergency. In our realistic times we like to lay our scenes
on a ground of Axminster with environments of lace curtains, pianos,
and oil paintings. How, then, shall I make you understand the real
human loves and sorrows that often have play in a girl's heart, where
there are no better stage fittings than stationary washtubs and kitchen
ranges?

Sylvia Thorne was sure that the pretty maid from Drogheda, whose
melancholy showed itself through the veil of her perfect health, had
suffered a disappointment. She watched her as she went silently about
her