llars a month," his wife
averred, with precision, "I expect her to do something for that
thirty-seven dollars and a half!"

"Well, but, Mother, she does!" Alexandra contributed eagerly. "In
Justine's case she does an awful lot! She plans, and saves, and thinks
about things. Sometimes she sits writing menus and crossing things out
for an hour at a time."

"And then Justine's a pioneer; in a way she's an experiment," the man
said. "Experiments are always expensive. That's why the club is
interested, I suppose. But in a few years probably the woods will be
full of graduate servants--everyone'll have one! They'll have their
clubs and their plans together, and that will solve some of the social
side of the old trouble. They--"

"Still, I notice that Mrs. Sargent herself doesn't employ graduate
servants!" Mrs. Salisbury, who had been following a wandering line of
thought, threw in darkly.

"Because they haven't any graduates for homes like hers, Mother,"
Alexandra supplied. "She keeps eight or nine housemaids. The college is
only to supply the average home, don't you see? Where only one or two
are kept--that's their idea."

"And do they suppose that the average American woman is willing to go
right on paying thirty-seven dollars and fifty cents for a maid?" Mrs.
Salisbury asked mildly.

"For five in family, Mother! Justine would only be thirty if three dear
little strangers hadn't come to brighten your home," Sandy reminded
her. "Besides," she went on, "Justine was telling me only a day or two
ago of their latest scheme--they are arranging so that a girl can
manage two houses in the same neighborhood. She gets breakfast for the
Joneses, say; leaves at nine for market; orders for both families; goes
to the Smiths and serves their hearty meal at noon; goes back to the
Joneses at five, and serves dinner."

"And what does she get for all this?" Mrs. Salisbury asked in a
skeptical tone.

"The Joneses pay her twenty-five, I believe, and the Smiths fifteen for
two in each family."

"What's to prevent the two families having all meals together," Mrs.
Salisbury asked, "instead of having to patch out with meals when they
had no maid?"

"Well, I suppose they could. Then she'd get her original thirty, and
five more for the two extra--you see, it comes out the same,
thirty-five dollars a month. Perhaps families will pool their expenses
that way some day. It would save buying, too, and table linen, and gas
and fuel. And it w