for anything got it as a matter of course. The kitchenmaid ought to
have made her application through Mrs. O'Halloran. It is the rule in
all services that remote authorities must be approached only through
the applicant's immediate superiors. Mrs. O'Halloran took her own way of
impressing this on the kitchenmaid.

"I suppose now," she said, "that you'll be trapsing the streets of
Dublin in the new pink blouse that you spent your last month's wages
on?"

That was exactly what the kitchenmaid meant to do. Mrs. O'Halloran
looked the girl over critically.

"I don't know," she said, "that I ever seen a girl that would look worse
in a pink blouse than yourself. The face that's on you is the colour
of a dish of mashed turnips, and the pink blouse will make it worse, if
worse can be."

The kitchenmaid was a girl of some spirit She felt inclined to cry, but
she pulled herself together and snorted instead.

"I suppose," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "that you'll be looking out for a
young man to keep you company?"

The kitchenmaid did, in fact, hope to walk about with a young man; but
she denied this.

"I'll be looking for no such thing," she said.

"It's well for you then," said Mrs. O'Halloran, "for I'm thinking you'd
look a long while before you found one. It's very little sense men has,
the best of them, but I never met one yet that hadn't more sense than
to go after a girl like you. If you were any good for any mortal thing a
man might be content to marry you in spite of your face; but the way
you are, not fit to darn your own stockings, let alone sew for a man, or
cook the way he could eat what you put before him, it would be a queer
one that would walk the same side of the street with you, pink blouse or
no pink blouse."

The kitchenmaid, though a girl of spirit, was still young. She was
washing potatoes in the scullery while Mrs. O'Halloran spoke to her. Two
large tears dropped from her eyes into the sink. Mrs. O'Halloran smiled.

Then Molly, the parlourmaid, flung open the kitchen door and rushed to
Mrs. O'Halloran. Her face was flushed with excitement and terror. Her
eyes were staring. She was panting. Her nice frilly cap was over one
ear. She held her apron crumpled into a ball and clutched tightly in her
hand.

"It's murdered we'll be, killed and murdered and worse! There's them in
the house with guns and all sorts that'll ruin and destroy everything
that's in it The mistress is dead this minute and it's me the