ditions than one of these ladies' maids or gentlemen's gentlemen.

Martha Corkle expresses her opinion freely upon this subject, and I must
confess to being a willing listener, for she does not gossip, she
portrays, and often with a masterly touch. The woes of her countrywoman,
the Ponsonby's housekeeper, often stir her to the quick. The Ponsonby
household is perhaps one of the most "difficult" on the Bluffs, because
its members are of widely divergent ages. The three Ponsonby girls range
from six to twenty-two, with a college freshman son second from the
beginning, while Josephine, sister of the head of the family, though
quite Miss Lavinia's age, is the gayest of the gay, and almost outdoes
her good-naturedly giddy sister-in-law.

"It's just hawful, Mrs. Evan," Martha said one day, when, judging by the
contents of the station 'bus and baggage wagon, almost the entire
Ponsonby house staff must have left at a swoop; "my eyes fairly bleeds
for poor Mrs. Maggs" (the housekeeper), "that they do. 'Twas bad enough
in the old country, where we knew our places, even though some was
ambitioned to get out of them; but here it's like blind man's buff, and
enough to turn a body giddy. Mrs. Maggs hasn't a sittin' room of her own
where she and the butler and the nurse can have their tea in peace or
entertain guests, but she sets two tables in the servants' hall, and a
pretty time she has of it.

"The kitchen maid and the laundress's assistant wait on the first table;
but one day when, the maid of one of Miss Ponsonby's friends comin' down
over late, she was served _with_ instead o' _by_ them, she gave Mrs.
Maggs the 'orriblest settin' down, as not knowin' her business in puttin'
a lady's lady with servants' servants, the same which Mrs. Maggs does
know perfectly (accidents bein' unpreventable), bein' child of Lord
Peacock's steward and his head nurse, and swallowin' it all in with her
mother's milk, so to speak, not borrowin' it second hand as some of the
great folks on the Bluffs themselves do from their servants, not feelin'
sure of the kerrect thing, yet desirin' so to do. Mrs. Maggs, poor body,
she has more mess with that servants' hall first table than with all the
big dinners the master gives.

"'Mrs. Corkle,' says she, bein' used to that name, besides Corkle bein'
kin to her husband, 'what I sets before my own household, as it were,
they leaves or they eats, it's one to me; but company's got to be handled
different, be it