t it right. We cannot down the spirit of
unrest and improvidence that holds possession of cooks and waitresses,
and we needs must suffer it with such patience as we can.

Two of our house servants were more or less permanent; that is, they
had been with us since we opened the house, and were as content as
restless spirits can be. These were the housekeeper and the cook,--the
hub of the house. The former is a Norwegian, tall, angular, and capable,
with a knot of yellow hair at the back of her head,--ostensibly for
sticking lead pencils into,--and a disposition to keep things snug and
clean. Her duties include the general supervision of both houses and the
special charge of store-rooms, food cellars, and table supplies of all
sorts. She is efficient, she whistles while she works, and I see but
little of her. I suspect that Polly knows her well.

The cook, Mary, is small, Irish, gray, with the temper of a pepper-pod
and the voice of a guinea-hen suffering from bronchitis, but she can
cook like an angel. She is an artist, and I feel as if the
seven-dollar-a-week stipend were but a "tip" to her, and that sometime
she will present me with a bill for her services. My safeguard, and one
that I cherish, is an angry word from her to the housekeeper. She
jeeringly asserted that she, the cook, got $2 a week more than she, the
housekeeper, did. As every one knows that the housekeeper has $5 a week,
I am holding this evidence against the time when Mary asks for a lump
sum adequate to her deserts. The number of things which Mary can make
out of everything and out of nothing is wonderful; and I am fully
persuaded that all the moneys paid to a really good cook are moneys put
into the bank. I often make trips to the kitchen to tell Mary that "the
dinner was great," or that "Mrs. Kyrle wants the receipt for that
pudding," or that "my friend Kyrle asks if he may see you make a salad
dressing;" but "don't do it, Mary; let the secret die with you." The
cook cackles, like the guinea-hen that she is, but the dishes are none
the worse for the commendation.

The laundress is just a washerwoman, so far as I know. She undoubtedly
changes with the seasons, but I do not see her, though the clothes are
always bleaching on the grass at the back of the house.

The maids are as changeable as old-fashioned silk. There are always two
of them; but which two, is beyond me. I tell Polly that Four Oaks is a
sprocket-wheel for maids, with two links of an en