friend, Mr. Burke, to rid them of their woes, and,
indeed, but for Jane's own intervention, I fear that course would
have proved the sole alternative to her becoming an irremovable
fixture in the household. But it was Jane herself who solved the
problem.

It was two days after the cranberry episode that the solution came,
and it was in this wise:

"Did ye send for me?" Jane asked, suddenly materializing in Mrs.
Perkins's room.

"No, Jane, I haven't; why?"

The girl began to shed tears.

"Because--you'd ought to have, ma'am. I know well enough that I
ain't satisfactory to you," she returned, her voice quivering, "and
I can't be, and I know you want me to go--and I--I've come to give
you notice."

Then Mrs. Perkins looked at Jane with sorrow on her countenance, for
she had acquired an affection for her which the maid's delinquencies
had not been able to efface.

"Can't you try and do better?" she asked.

"No, ma'am," returned Jane. "Not with the system--never. Mr.
Perkins is too easy, and you do be so soft-hearted it don't keep a
girl up to her work. When I first come here, ma'am, not knowin' ye
well, I was afraid to be anything but what was right, but the way
you took accidents, and a bit of a shortcomin' once in a while, sort
of took away my fear, and I've been goin' down hill ever since.
Servant-girls is only human, Mrs. Perkins."

Mrs. Perkins looked at Jane inquiringly.

"We needs to be kept up to our work just as much as anybody else,
and when a lady like yourself is too easy, it gets a girl into bad
habits, and occasionally it does us good if the gentleman of the
house will swear at us, Mrs. Perkins, and sort of scare us, so it
does. It was that that was the making of me. The last place I was
in, ma'am, I was so afraid of both the missus and the gentleman that
I didn't dare to be careless; and I didn't dare be careless with you
until I found you all the time a-smilin', whatever went wrong, and
Mr. Perkins never sayin' a word, whether the dishes come to the
table clean or not."

"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Perkins, somewhat carried away by this
course of reasoning, "you haven't been what we hoped--there is no
denying that; but knowing that you were disappointing us, why
couldn't you have made a special effort?"

"Oh, Mrs. Perkins," sobbed the poor woman, "you don't understand.
We're all disappointin' to them we loves, but--it's them we fear--"

"Then why aren't you afraid of us?"

Jane laughe