r whether, after all, Effie's prophecy might not
prove a false one.

"I tell you what, Willie: Wait a minute and I'll ask Effie."

"Why do you got to ask her?"

"Because mother's not home. Besides, if I do get sick, I'll want Effie
to take care of me."

This last was too sound a reason for Willie to gainsay, so Margery
called Effie to the kitchen door.

"Blackberryin'! And in the sun!" Effie repeated, when Margery had
delivered herself. "Well, I guess not! Here you are just stuffed full of
ripe bananas and you want a-go out trampin' in the sun! Not much! You
stay right where you are, me lady, and take care o' yourself."

"You see," Margery explained to Willie Jones.

"Aw, rats!" that young gentleman exclaimed, turning a hostile front
toward the kitchen door. "Come on, Margery. What do you care what Effie
says? She's nuthin' but an old hired girl! I wouldn't let any old hired
girl boss me around!"

"Any old--_what_?" gasped Effie, her face turning red and her eyes
opening wide with horror.

"Any old hired girl!" Willie Jones repeated defiantly. "Ain't she
nuthin' but an old hired girl, Margery?"

It was a question Margery had never before considered. To her Effie had
always been merely Effie--merely the person who cooked and sewed and
swept and waited on table and combed your hair and buttoned your dress
and did all the thousand and one things about the house that had to be
done and always were done. She was merely Effie and, come to think of
it, she must be the hired girl, for in every house in the neighborhood
the person who did the things or a few of the things that Effie did was
undoubtedly the hired girl. And if you are a thing, what's the sense
pretending you aren't? Margery did not wish to offend Effie, but facts
is facts.

"Of course Effie's our hired girl."

For a moment Effie looked hurt enough for tears.

"Oh, Margery, how can you? And after all the years I've took care of you
and loved you! You don't mean it, do you? You're not going to call your
poor old Effie such an ugly name, are you?"

"Well, I don't see why you talk that way, Effie. You are a hired girl,
aren't you?"

"Of course she's a hired girl," Willie Jones insisted. "And I'd just
like to see any old hired girl of ours telling me what I dast do and
what I dassent. Come on, Margery, we can't wait all day."

[Illustration: "I'm only the hired girl!"]

"Any old hired girl!" shouted Effie. She was angry now, so angry that
Margery