both
moody. They hardly spoke till Ned asked Nellie:

"I don't see what men can get to do but can't single women always get
servants' places?"

"Some might who don't, though all women who want work couldn't be
domestic servants, that's plain," answered Nellie. "But by the number of
girls that are always looking for places and the way the registry offices
are able to bleed them, I should imagine there were any amount of servant
girls already. The thing is there are so many girls that mistresses can
afford to be particular. They want a girl with all the virtues to be a
sort of house-slave, and they're always grumbling because they can't get
it. So they're always changing, and the girls are always changing, and
that makes the girls appear independent."

"But they have good board and lodging, as well as wages, don't they?"

"In swell houses, where they keep two or three or wore girls, they
usually have good board and decent rooms, I think, but they don't in most
places. Any hole or corner is considered good, enough for a servant girl
to sleep in, and any scraps are often considered good enough for a
servant girl to eat. You look as though you don't believe it, Ned. I'm
talking about what I know. The average domestic servant is treated like a
trained dog."

"Did you ever try it?"

"I went to work in a hotel as chamber maid, once. I worked from about six
in the morning till after ten at night. Then four of us girls slept in
two beds in a kind of box under the verandah stairs in the back yard. We
had to leave the window open to get air, and in the middle of the first
night a light woke me up and a man was staring through the window at us
with a match in his hand. I wanted the twelve shillings so I stood it for
a week and, then got another place."

"What sort was that?"

"Oh! A respectable place, you know. Kept up appearances and locked up the
butter. The woman said to me, when I'd brought my box, 'I'm going to call
you Mary, I always call my girls Mary.' I slept in a dark close den off
the kitchen, full of cockroaches that frightened the wits out of me. I
was afraid to eat as much as I wanted because she looked at me so. I
couldn't rest a minute but she was hunting me up to see what I was doing.
I hadn't anybody to talk with or eat with and my one night out I had to
be in by ten. I was so miserable that I went back to slop-work. That's
what Mrs. Somerville is doing."

"It isn't all honey, then. I thought town servan