No nonsense, regular holidays, and hard work
when they are working is the only way to impress maids. Mary
Underwood," she went on, turning to her sister, "says that, when she
and Fred are to be away for a meal, she deliberately lays out extra
work for the maid; she says it keeps her from getting ideas. No,
Sally," Mrs. Otis concluded, with the older-sister manner she had worn
years ago, "no, dear; you are all wrong about this, and sooner or later
this girl will simply walk over you, and you'll see it as I do.
Changing her book at the library, indeed! How did she know that you
mightn't want tea served this afternoon?"

"She wouldn't serve it, if we did, Aunt Martha," Sandy said, dimpling.
"She never serves tea! That's one of the regulations."

"Well, we simply won't discuss it," Mrs. Otis said, firm lines forming
themselves at the corners of her capable mouth. "If you like that sort
of thing, you like it, that's all! I don't. We'll talk of something
else."

But she could not talk of anything else. Presently she burst out afresh.

"Dear me, when I think of the way Ma used to manage 'em! No nonsense
there; it was walk a chalk line in Ma's house! Your grandmother," she
said to Alexandra, with stern relish, "had had a pack of slaves about
her in HER young days. But, of course, Sally," she added charitably,
"you've been ill, and things do have to run themselves when one's ill--"

"You don't get the idea, Auntie," Sandy said blithely. "Mother pays for
efficiency. Justine isn't a mere extra pair of hands; she's a trained
professional worker. She's just like a stenographer, except that what
she does is ten times harder to learn than stenography. We can no more
ask her to get tea than Dad could ask his head bookkeeper to--well, to
drop in here some Sunday and O.K. Mother's household accounts. It's an
age of specialization, Aunt Martha."

"It's an age of utter nonsense," Mrs. Otis said forcibly. "But if your
mother and father like to waste their money that way--"

"There isn't much waste of money to it," Mrs. Salisbury put in neatly,
"for Justine manages on less than I ever did. I think there's been only
one week this fall when she hasn't had a balance."

"A balance of what?"

"A surplus, I mean. A margin left from her allowance."

The pink wool fell heavily into Mrs. Otis's broad lap. "She handles
your money for you, does she, Sally?"

"Why, yes. She seems eminently fitted for it. And she does it for a
third less, Ma