“H’m!  A stepmother, probably,” thought the kindly little woman.  “Poor child!  She doesn’t look as if she was used to roughing it.  If I could only hold on to her and train her, she might be a treasure, but there’s no telling what John will say.  I won’t tell him anything about her, if I can help it, till the dinner is over.”

Aloud she said:  “Oh, that won’t be necessary.  I’ve got a white apron I’ll lend you—­perhaps I’ll give it to you if you do your work well.  Then we can fix up some kind of a waitress’s cap out of a lace-edged handkerchief, and you’ll look fine.  I’d rather do that and have you come right along home with me, for everything is at sixes at sevens.  Betty went off without washing the breakfast dishes.  You can wash dishes, any way.”

“Why, I can try,” laughed the girl, the ridiculousness of her present situation suddenly getting the better of other emotions.

And so they got into a car and were whirled away into a pretty suburb.  The woman, whose name was Mrs. Hart, lived in a common little house filled with imitation oriental rugs and cheap furniture.

The two went to work at once, bringing order out of the confusion that reigned in the tiny kitchen.  In the afternoon the would-be waitress sat down with a box of water-colors to paint dinner-cards, and as her skilful brush brought into being dainty landscapes, lovely flowers, and little brown birds, she pondered the strangeness of her lot.

The table the next night was laid with exquisite care, the scant supply of flowers having been used to best advantage, and everything showing the touch of a skilled hand.  The long hours that Mrs. Hart had spent puckering her brow over the household department of fashion magazines helped her to recognize the fact that in her new maid she had what she was pleased to call “the real thing.”

She sighed regretfully when the guest of honor, Mrs. Rhinehart, spoke of the deftness and pleasant appearance of her hostess’s waitress.

“Yes,” Mrs. Hart said, swelling with pride, “she is a treasure.  I only wish I could keep her.”

“She’s going to get married, I suppose.  They all do when they’re good,” sympathized the guest.

“No, but she simply won’t do cooking, and I really haven’t work enough for two servants in this little house.”

The guest sat up and took notice.

“You don’t mean to tell me that you are letting a girl like that slip through your fingers?  I wish I had known about her.  I have spent three days in intelligence offices.  Is there any chance for me, do you think?”

Then did the little woman prove that she should have had an e in her name, for she burst into a most voluble account of the virtues of her new maid, until the other woman was ready to hire her on the spot.  The result of it all was that “Mary” was summoned to an interview with Mrs. Rhinehart in the dining-room, and engaged at four dollars a week, with every other Sunday afternoon and every other Thursday out, and her uniforms furnished.