under
his sister's; and so the resolve had gone forth, in her mind, that
Grace's dominion in the family should come to an end, and that she
would, as sole empress, reconstruct the state. But, of course, she was
too wise to say a word about it.

"Dear me!" she said, the next morning, when Grace proposed showing her
through the house and delivering up the keys, "I'm sure I don't see
why you want to show things to me. I'm nothing of a housekeeper, you
know: all I know is what I want, and I've always had what I wanted,
you know; but, you see, I haven't the least idea how it's to be done.
Why, at home I've been everybody's baby. Mamma laughs at the idea of
my knowing any thing. So, Grace dear, you must just be prime minister;
and I'll be the good-for-nothing Queen, and just sign the papers, and
all that, you know."

Grace found, the first week, that to be housekeeper to a young
duchess, in an American village and with American servants, was no
sinecure.

The young mistress, the next week, tumbled into the wash an amount of
muslin and lace and French puffing and fluting sufficient to employ
two artists for two or three days, and by which honest Bridget, as she
stood at her family wash-tub, was sorely perplexed.

But, in America, no woman ever dies for want of speaking her mind; and
the lower orders have their turn in teaching the catechism to their
superiors, which they do with an effectiveness that does credit to
democracy.

"And would ye be plased to step here, Miss Saymour," said Bridget to
Grace, in a voice of suppressed emotion, and pointing oratorically,
with her soapy right arm, to a snow-wreath of French finery and
puffing on the floor. "What _I_ asks, Miss Grace, is, _Who_ is to do
all this? I'm sure it would take me and Katy a week, workin' day and
night, let alone the cookin' and the silver and the beds, and all
them. It's a pity, now, somebody shouldn't spake to that young
crather; fur she's nothin' but a baby, and likely don't know any
thing, as ladies mostly don't, about what's right and proper."
Bridget's Christian charity and condescension in this last sentence
was some mitigation of the crisis; but still Grace was appalled. We
all of us, my dear sisters, have stood appalled at the tribunal of
good Bridgets rising in their majesty and declaring their ultimatum.

[Illustration: "_Who_ is to do all this?"]

Bridget was a treasure in the town of Springdale, where servants were
scarce and poor; and, what