d through her tears. The idea was preposterous.

"Afraid of you and Mr. Perkins? Ah!" she said, sadly, "if I only
could be--but I can't. Why, Mrs. Perkins, if Mr. Perkins should
come in here now and swear at me the way Mr. Barley did when I
worked there, I'd know he was only puttin' it on, and that inside
he'd be laughin' at me. No, ma'am, it's no use. I feel that I must
go, or I'll be forever ruined. It was the cranberry showed me; a
girl had ought to be discharged for that. Dirty dinner plates isn't
excusable, and yet neither of you said a word, and next week it'll
be the same way--so I'm goin'. You won't send me off, so I've got
to do it myself."

"Very well, Jane," said Mrs. Perkins; "if that is the way you feel
about it we'll have to part, I suppose. I am sorry, but--"

The sentence was not finished, for Jane rushed weeping from the
room, and within a few days, her place having been filled, the house
knew her no more, except as an occasional visitor, ostensibly to see
the children. Later she got a place to her satisfaction, and one
night the Perkins were invited to dine with Jane's new employers.
They went and found their old-time "butler" at the very zenith of
her powers. She served the dinner as she had never served one in
her palmiest days in the Perkins's dining-room; and when all was
over, and when Mrs. Perkins went up-stairs to don her wrap to return
home, she found Jane above waiting to help her.

"I am glad to see you so happy, Jane," she said, as the girl held
her cloak.

"Ah, ma'am, I'm not very happy."

"You ought to be, here. Your work to-night was perfect."

"Yes," said Jane, "it had to be, for"--here her voice fell to a
whisper--"I don't dare let it be different, ma'am. Mrs. Harkins is
a regular divvle, and the ould gentleman--well, ma'am, he do swear
finer 'n any gentleman I ever met. It's just the place for me."

And Jane sighed as her old mistress left her.

"Wasn't she great, Bess?" said Thaddeus, on the way home.

"She was, indeed," replied Mrs. Perkins, with a smile. "It's a pity
I'm not a divvle."

Thaddeus laughed. "That's so," he said; "or that I never learned to
swear like a gentleman, eh?"

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