not so much an object to them as opportunities of friendship.  The lady, who had an element of romance in her, was touched with this expression of sentiment; it was also a great convenience to her to be so quickly suited; and, their characters being good, she engaged them.  They had come from a house of much greater pretensions than her own, and had taken higher wages, which might have attracted her suspicions; but she had very little work for them to do, and she concluded that ’an easy place’ had had its attractions for them.  Her servants were well treated and well fed, and were allowed to see their friends; but she objected to evening visits, and required the back door to be locked and the key placed in her possession at nine o’clock every evening.  If the front door was opened she could hear it from every part of her modest residence (and, being very nervous, she used often to fancy that it opened when it did not), while a wire for the use of the policeman connected the ground-floor with an alarm bell in her own room in case of fire or other contingency.  The two servants had been six days with her when this alarm bell was pealed one night with great violence.  She looked out of window, and beheld a cab laden with luggage standing at her door.  She expected nobody; but whoever had come was more welcome than ‘thieves’ or ‘fire,’ and she went up to the maid’s room to bid them answer the door.  She found to her great astonishment—­for it was two in the morning—­the apartment empty, and while she was there the alarm-bell sounded again with increased fury.  Looking over the balusters, she perceived a light in the hall and inquired who was there.  ‘Well, it’s us two,’ returned the cook, ’we’re just agoin, so good-bye.  It ain’t at all the sort o’ place for us, and you ain’t the sort o’ missis.’  Then there was a shout of laughter, the front door was opened and slammed to, and the cab drove off with its tenants, leaving their mistress to her lonely meditations.  The two friends had come on trial, it seemed, and had had enough of it.

That they made no claim for wages of any kind seems quite curious when one considers what sort of servants, and in what sort of circumstances, do demand them.  And, as a rule, masters and mistresses give in to the extortion.  Yet the law is on their side, nor have they any reason to complain of it in other respects.  The improvement that is needed is in themselves, and in their relations to those in their employment.  Our young ladies are so engaged in their accomplishments and their amusements that they have no time to acquire a knowledge of domestic affairs, so that when they marry they know no more of a housewife’s duties than their husbands.  No wonder men of moderate means shrink from marriage when wives have become a source of discomfort and expense, instead of their contraries, and have lost the name of helpmate.  How can they be in a position to teach their servants when they themselves are grossly ignorant of what they would have them learn?  There are certain village schools, indeed, which profess to train their pupils for domestic service, but they only teach them to be maids-of-all-work, the least remunerated and the hardest-worked of all the daughters of toil.  They offer no premium to diligence and perfection.