you know, my dear, that there are two sides to every
question."

"Even to Ellen's biscuits?" Mrs. Brinley laughed.

"Never mind that. She's going to do better," said Brinley. "You'll find
that hereafter we've got a cook, and not an incendiary nor a forger of
armor-plate."

"And may I ask how this wonderful reform has been worked in the brief
space of ten minutes?" asked Mrs. Brinley. "Have you hypnotized her?"

"No," said Brinley. Then he looked rather sheepishly out of the window.
"I've given her an incentive to do better. I've increased her wages."

Mrs. Brinley gazed at him silently in open-mouthed wonder for a full
half-minute.

"You did what?" asked Mrs. Brinley.

"I told her we'd give her twenty dollars a month instead of sixteen,"
said Brinley. "You needn't laugh," he added. "I began very severely.
Asked her what she meant by ignoring our wishes as to hours. I dilated
forcefully upon her apparent fondness for burning steaks to a crisp,
and sending broiled chicken to the table looking as if somebody had
dropped a flat-iron on them."

"Good!" exclaimed Mrs. Brinley. "And what did she say? Was she
impertinent?"

"Not a bit of it," said Brinley "She took it very nicely until I spoke
of the muffins, after which I had intended to give her notice to quit,
but she took the wind completely out of my sails by asking me what I
expected at sixteen dollars a month."

"Ah!" said Mrs. Brinley.

"Exactly," said Brinley. "That was a point I had not considered at all.
After all, she was right. What can you expect for sixteen dollars?"

"Well, what next?" asked Mrs. Brinley, her eyes a-twinkle.

"I asked her if she thought she could do better on twenty dollars," he
answered. "She thought she could, and that's the way it stands now."

"I see," said Mrs. Brinley, and then she burst into a perfect explosion
of laughter, which she soon curbed, however, as she noticed the
expression on poor Brinley's face. "I've no doubt you have acted with
perfect justice in this matter, my dear George," she said. "But I think
hereafter I'll do my own discharging. Your way is rather
extravagant--er--don't you really think so?"

"Perhaps," said Brinley, and departed for town.

"The madam is right about that," he said to himself later in the day, as
he thought over the incident. "But extravagant or not, I couldn't have
discharged that woman if somebody had offered me a clear hundred. Mrs.
B. doesn't know it, but I was in a blue funk f