aving a council of war on the back stoop with
the baker and grocer, are so much worse than one maid, don't you
know, precious?"

"The long and the short of it is, Arthur," Anna Carroll said, quite
bluntly, "it is much less wearing to get on with one maid who has not
had her wages, and much easier to induce her to remain or forfeit all
hope of ever receiving them, than with more than one."

Only the one maid was engaged, and now Anna's prophecy had come to
pass, and she was remaining for the sake of her unpaid wages. She was
a young girl, and pretty for one of her sisterhood, who perpetuate,
as a rule, the hard and strenuous lineaments and forms held to hard
labor, until they have attained a squat solidity of ungraceful
muscle. This little Hungarian Marie was still not overdeveloped
muscularly, although one saw her hands with a certain shock after her
little, smiling face, which still smiled, despite her wrongs. Nothing
could exceed the sweetness of the girl's disposition, although she
came of a fierce peasant line, quick to resort to the knife as a
redresser of injuries, and quick to perceive injuries.

Marie still danced assiduously about her tasks, which were manifold,
for not one of the Carroll women had the slightest idea of any
accountability in the matter of household labor. It never occurred to
one of them to make her bed, or even hang up her dress, but, instead,
to wonder why Marie did not do it. However, if Marie really had an
ill day, or, as sometimes happened, was up all night at a ball, they
never rebelled or spoke an impatient word. The beds simply remained
unmade and the dresses where they had fallen. The ladies always had a
kindly, ever-caressing smile or word for little Marie. They were
actually, in a way, fond of her, as people are fond of a pretty
little domestic beast of burden, and Marie herself adored them. She
loved them from afar, and one of her great reasons for wishing to
stay for her wages was to buy some finery after the fashion of
Charlotte's and Ina's. Marie had not asked for her wages many times,
and never of Captain Carroll, but to-night she took courage. There
was a ball that week, Thursday, and her poor, little, cheap muslin of
last season was bedraggled and faded until it was no longer wearable.
Marie waylaid Captain Carroll as he was returning from the stable,
whither he had been to see a lame foot of one of the horses. Marie
stood in her kitchen door, around which was growing lusti