rl keeps on her
feet all the time to prove she isn't lazy, for if the mistress finds her
sitting down, she thinks there can't be much to do and that she doesn't
earn her wages. Then if a girl tries to save herself or is deliberate,
they call her slow. They want girls on tap from six in the morning till
ten and eleven at night. 'Tisn't fair. And then, if there's a let-up in
the work, maybe they give you the baby to see to. I like a nice baby,
but I don't like having one turned over to me when I'm fit to drop
scrabbling to get through and sit down a bit. I've naught to say for the
girls that's breaking things and half doing the work. They're a shameful
set, and ought to be put down somehow; but it's a fact that the most
I've known in service have been another sort that stayed long in places
and hated change. There's many a good place too, but the bad ones
outnumber 'em. Women make hard mistresses, and I say again, I'd rather
be under a man, that knows what he wants. That's the way with most."

"I don't see why people are surprised that we don't rush into places,"
said a shop-girl. "Our world may be a very narrow world, and I know it
is; but for all that, it's the only one we've got, and right or wrong,
we're out of it if we go into service. A teacher or cashier or anybody
in a store, no matter if they have got common-sense, doesn't want to
associate with servants. Somehow you get a sort of smooch. Young men
think and say, for I have heard lots of them, 'Oh, she can't amount to
much if she hasn't brains enough to make a living outside of a kitchen!'
You're just down once for all if you go into one."

"I don't agree with you at all," said a young teacher who had come with
her. "The people that hire you go into kitchens and are not disgraced.
What I felt was, for you see I tried it, that they oughtn't to make me
go into livery. I was worn out with teaching, and so I concluded to try
being a nurse for a while. I found two hard things: one, that I was
never free for an hour from the children, for I took meals and all with
them, and any mother knows what a rest it is to go quite away from them,
even for an hour; and the other was that she wanted me to wear the
nurse's cap and apron. She was real good and kind; but when I said,
'Would you like your sister, Miss Louise, to put on cap and apron when
she goes out with them?' she got very red, and straightened up. 'It's a
very different matter,' she said; 'you must not forget that i