play, and some to run errands,
had been dismissed into the large outside.

The big house was tranquil. The afternoon sun, which had got round to
the kitchen window, blazed in there through a fringe of icicles that
hung from the low eaves of the kitchen roof, and sent a long strip of
bright prismatic rays across the floor and through the door on to the
rag carpet under the dining-room table. Ever and anon, as the ladies
sewed, the sound of sleigh-bells came to them, distant, then nearer,
then near, with the trotting of horses' feet as they passed the house,
then again more distant. The dining-room window faced the road, but one
could not see through it without standing upright.

"Mamma," said Sophia, "it is quite clear we can never make an ordinary
servant out of Eliza; but if we try to be companionable to her we may
help her to learn what she needs to learn, and make her more willing to
stay with us."

It was Mrs. Rexford's way never to approach a subject gradually in
speech. If her mind went through the process ordinarily manifested in
introductory remarks it slipped through it swiftly and silently, and her
speech darted into the heart of the subject, or skipped about and hit it
on all sides at once.

"Ah, but I told her again and again, Sophia, to say 'miss' to the girls.
She either didn't hear, or she forgot, or she wouldn't understand. I
think you're the only one she'll say 'miss' to. But we couldn't do
without her. Mrs. Nash was telling me the other day that her girl had
left in the middle of the washing, and the one they had before that for
a year--a little French Romanist--stole all their handkerchiefs, and did
not give them back till she made confession to her priest at Easter. It
was very _awkward_, Sophia, to be without handkerchiefs all winter." The
crescendo emphasis which Mrs. Rexford had put into her remarks found its
fortissimo here. Then she added more mildly, "Though I got no character
with Eliza I am convinced she will never pilfer."

Mrs. Rexford was putting her needle out and in with almost electric
speed. Her mind was never quiet, but there was a healthy cheerfulness in
her little quick movements that removed them from the region of weak
nervousness. Yet Sophia knit her brow, and it was with an effort that
she continued amicably:

"Certainly we should be more uncomfortable without her just now than
she would be without us; but if she left us there's no saying where her
ambition might lead he