maid
_could_ think. She thought the laundry bill had been rather high the
last few weeks, so she kept back a lot of table-linen what time a party
of guests were expected. She was hurt about it when reproved, and said
she could never do right. She couldn't... Martin! make up my mind for
me.--Should I give Parsons notice or not?"

Martin elevated his eyebrows, and nodded once or twice with an air of
enlightenment.

"Ah-ha! Now we come to it! I was waiting for the personal application.
Parsons, eh! Let me hear the case. Yours and Parsons's. Then I can
judge."

Grizel rested both elbows on the table, and supported her chin in the
hollow of her hands.

"Parsons," she said clearly. "Maud Emily, age twenty-six. Profession,
House-parlourmaid. Religion, Anabaptist (I'm sure she's an Anabaptist,
by the cut of her Sunday hat). Honest. Steady. Clean in her work and
person. Willing and obliging. Can clean plate... Forgets everything.
Breaks the rest. Snores while waiting. Has feelings, and an invalid
mamma, who, I feel it in my bones, will be tuk worse regularly on the
afternoons of dinner parties. In every emergency, can be backed to do
the worst possible thing... There! it's a problem for a society paper!
... _What should Mrs Beverley do_?"

"Mrs Beverley should exercise patience and self-control. She should
speak gently to the poor girl, who no doubt is doing her best. First
Prize awarded for this solution, a copy of Mrs Tupper's famous work,
_The Blue Boy Darling_."

Grizel contemplated him frowningly.

"Something will have to be done about your jokes! You have no sense of
fitness. It drives me daft when a person jokes when I am worried. I'll
laugh myself in a fortnight's time; with grace I'll laugh to-morrow, but
I won't laugh to-day for all the jokes on earth, and I hate anyone who
tries to make me do it. I'm not in the mood for jokes, and you ought to
know it without being told."

"Sorry, Madam, but there seems something wrong with your theory. You
want to be cheered when you are already cheered, and not to be cheered
when you are in need of cheering."

"Silly jokes," Grizel said firmly, "do not cheer. They can be endured
in periods of health. In periods of affliction they are the last straw
which breaks the woman's back."

Martin chewed his bacon in dignified silence, while his wife cocked a
speculative eye at him to see if she had gone too far. Presently the
two pairs of eyes m