"Hilda!" called out a voice in a shrill, angry key. "Hilda!"

"Yes--m'm," came the slow reply.

The boarding house drudge, a bold looking Irish girl, not devoid of
certain physical attractions, despite a dirty apron, dishevelled hair,
and besmudged face, entered Mrs. Parkes' parlor, carrying broom and dust
pan.

"Was it me yer wus after callin', m'm?" she demanded, in a rich, auld
counthry brogue.

"I thought I told you to dust this room!" snapped her mistress, with
rising wrath.

The girl looked stupidly around.

"Sure--ain't it dusted?" she answered saucily.

Mrs. Parkes bounded with anger. Losing all patience and pointing to an
accumulation of dirt plainly in evidence under the chairs, she cried:

"Do you call that dusting? What have you been doing all day? It's always
the same--nothing done. I don't know what we're coming to--having to run
a respectable house with such help. All you girls think about nowadays
is gadding about, getting as much wages as you can, and doing as little
work as possible. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

Mrs. Parkes stopped her tirade for sheer want of breath. Hilda threw
back her head defiantly.

"Maybe I ain't as good as some as think they're my betters, and maybe I
am. If I don't suit, yer can get someone else. My month's up to-day.
I'll go at once."

Throwing down broom and dust pan, she bounced out of the room.

Mrs. Parkes looked after the disappearing form of her housemaid in
consternation. She was sorry now that she had lost her temper. Servants
were so hard to keep that it seemed the height of folly to deliberately
send them away. It would have been better to put up with any insolence
rather than expose herself to be left alone. How was it possible to run
a boarding house without domestic help? Certainly things were coming to
a pretty pass if a mistress couldn't say a few plain words of truth.
With a weary sigh of discouragement, she picked up the broom and started
to do, herself, the work which Hilda had neglected.

The servant problem had bothered Mrs. Parkes for nearly twenty-three
years, since the day when she first took upon herself the task of
letting "nice rooms with board for select ladies and gentlemen." Left a
widow in straitened circumstances after a none too happy married life,
and faced with the urgent necessity of doing something for a living, it
occurred to her that the best way to provide herself and boy with a home
and income was to open a bo