quent after the
introduction of the gong.

Mrs. Adams took this increased frequency to be only another
manifestation of the inexplicable new difficulties that beset all
housekeeping. You paid a cook double what you had paid one a few years
before; and the cook knew half as much of cookery, and had no gratitude.
The more you gave these people, it seemed, the worse they behaved--a
condition not to be remedied by simply giving them less, because you
couldn't even get the worst unless you paid her what she demanded.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Adams remained fitfully an optimist in the matter.
Brought up by her mother to speak of a female cook as "the girl," she
had been instructed by Alice to drop that definition in favour of one
not an improvement in accuracy: "the maid." Almost always, during
the first day or so after every cook came, Mrs. Adams would say, at
intervals, with an air of triumph: "I believe--of course it's a little
soon to be sure--but I do really believe this new maid is the treasure
we've been looking for so long!" Much in the same way that Alice dreamed
of a mysterious perfect mate for whom she "waited," her mother had
a fairy theory that hidden somewhere in the universe there was the
treasure, the perfect "maid," who would come and cook in the Adamses'
kitchen, not four days or four weeks, but forever.

The present incumbent was not she. Alice, profoundly interested herself,
kept her mother likewise so preoccupied with the dress that they were
but vaguely conscious of the gong's soft warnings, though these were
repeated and protracted unusually. Finally the sound of a hearty voice,
independent and enraged, reached the pair. It came from the hall below.

"I says goo'-BYE!" it called. "Da'ss all!"

Then the front door slammed.

"Why, what----" Mrs. Adams began.

They went down hurriedly to find out. Miss Perry informed them.

"I couldn't make her listen to reason," she said. "She rang the gong
four or five times and got to talking to herself; and then she went up
to her room and packed her bag. I told her she had no business to go out
the front door, anyhow."

Mrs. Adams took the news philosophically. "I thought she had something
like that in her eye when I paid her this morning, and I'm not
surprised. Well, we won't let Mr. Adams know anything's the matter till
I get a new one."

They lunched upon what the late incumbent had left chilling on the
table, and then Mrs. Adams prepared to wash the dishes; s