Crux is engaged to be married,
and as soon as her master can suit himself she is going away. These
discoveries I made some days since. But when I saw Mrs. Attwood
to-night, she had received another letter from her daughter in the
interval, and that letter has helped me to find out something more.
The housekeeper is at her wits' end to find a new servant. Her master
insists on youth and good looks--he leaves everything else to the
housekeeper--but he will have that. All the inquiries made in the
neighborhood have failed to produce the sort of parlor-maid whom the
admiral wants. If nothing can be done in the next fortnight or three
weeks, the housekeeper will advertise in the _Times_, and will come
to London herself to see the applicants, and to make strict personal
inquiry into their characters."

Louisa looked at her mistress more attentively than ever. The expression
of perplexity left her face, and a shade of disappointment appeared
there in its stead. "Bear in mind what I have said," pursued Magdalen;
"and wait a minute more, while I ask you some questions. Don't think you
understand me yet--I can assure you, you don't understand me. Have you
always lived in service as lady's maid?"

"No, ma'am."

"Have you ever lived as parlor-maid?"

"Only in one place, ma'am, and not for long there."

"I suppose you lived long enough to learn your duties?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"What were your duties besides waiting at table?"

"I had to show visitors in."

"Yes; and what else?"

"I had the plate and the glass to look after; and the table-linen
was all under my care. I had to answer all the bells, except in the
bedrooms. There were other little odds and ends sometimes to do--"

"But your regular duties were the duties you have just mentioned?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"How long ago is it since you lived in service as a parlor-maid?"

"A little better than two years, ma'am."

"I suppose you have not forgotten how to wait at table, and clean plate,
and the rest of it, in that time?"

At this question Louisa's attention, which had been wandering more
and more during the progress of Magdalen's inquiries, wandered away
altogether. Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion,
and even of her timidity. Instead of answering her mistress, she
suddenly and confusedly ventured on a question of her own.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," she said. "Did you mean me to offer for the
parlor-maid's place at St. Crux?"

"You?" repl