Florence Brand presented herself at her sister’s house on the following morning, to take her to a large registry office, “You’ll see plenty of girls there,” she said. “You must be prepared to wait a while if you are told that a suitable article is not then on the premises.”

“I suppose I shall get home before my half-past-one dinner-hour?” said Lucy.

“It is not in the power of woman to prophesy when you will get home,” Florence answered. “But surely,” she cried, as her little nephew came in equipped for a walk, “you do not dream of taking Hugh with us?”

“Certainly I do!” answered Lucy. “It may not be much of a pleasure for him; but he is good and patient. Indeed, there is nothing else to be done.”

“Cannot you leave him with your charwoman?” asked Florence. “Don’t you think she is respectable?”

“Hugh,” said his mother, “run upstairs and find my gloves in my bedroom. Yes,” she replied to her sister as the child ran off, “Mrs. Sim is perfectly respectable as a charwoman. But I know nothing of her as regards children. She might think it kind to indulge Hugh with lumps of sugar, or by telling him stories of ghosts or murders.”

“Well,” said Florence, “you think I am hard on the lower orders; but I’m sure I’d leave my youngsters in their charge for a few hours—in one’s own house too, where there can be nothing dirty or infectious. I don’t know much more of the nurses I hire than you do of your Mrs. Sim.”

“I could trust Hugh with Pollie without any misgiving,” answered Mrs. Challoner. “I knew her ways with him as I know my own.”

She said no more, though she might have added that nothing but bitter compulsion would induce her to trust her darling to the tender mercies—mental and moral—of many women not of the “lower orders,” even of Florence herself!—whose motherly methods were by no means those of her sister.

The registry office was kept in an old-fashioned house in an old-fashioned street. A few men, with that undefinable stamp which marks a manservant, were lounging about the door, while dotted over the pavement were groups of smart and voluble young women. Now and then one of them raised a shrill mirthless laugh.

Lucy’s heart sank within her.

“Of course, some of all sorts come to these places,” said Florence reassuringly. “Let me tell you these very girls would pass muster in any respectable house once they are arrayed in their caps and aprons. They put on their good manners with their livery.”

Lucy wondered whether it may be true wisdom to insist on a garb which so easily becomes a mere domino in which very unexpected human nature may masquerade.

“We shall have to go up to the second floor,” whispered Mrs. Brand. “The menservants are seen on the ground floor, cooks and head-housemaids on the first, and smaller fry, such as we want, on the second. Possibly lodging-house keepers interview their little slaveys in the attics.”

Women hanging about on the landings managed to make plain their contempt for ladies who were manifestly seeking a mere “general.” The front room on the second floor was so thronged that the sisters could scarcely find standing room. It was not easy to distinguish between mistresses and maids, for nobody was of a refined type, and in dress—at least, on first glance—all seemed equally smart and fashionable.

A clerk of the office was edging about, note-book in hand. She was a red-faced middle-aged woman, wearing a dusty, jet-trimmed black alpaca gown.

“A general servant is scarcely to be had, madam,” she said.

“Then what are all these?” asked Mrs. Brand. “I thought this was the ‘general servants’ department.”

“So it is. But most of these are general servants ‘where another is kept.’ They would not go as a single hand,” explained the clerk.

“I must have one who will consent to do so,” said Lucy. Something in her low clear voice and simple decision of manner made the registry office clerk turn and look at her. This was not the style of mistress with whom she was best acquainted.

“I will try to please you, madam,” said the clerk. “I fear there is nobody suitable in the house at present. But one may come in at any moment. A great many girls do not appear till about noon. May I ask you to take a seat? There is a sofa vacant near the window.”

As the sisters took their seats on the shabby little sofa, two or three gaudy girls strolled past them, inspecting them from their hats down to their boots.

Lucy whispered—

“This puts me in mind of what we used to read about the slave marts in the States.”

“Yes, only it is the employers who are now on view!” said Florence snappily.

“I don’t know whether that makes it either worse—or better,” Lucy answered, drawing Hugh closer to her side.

The next moment a tall raw-boned woman with a forbidding countenance stepped up and bluntly asked,

“Are you wantin’ a general servant?”

“Yes, I am,” Lucy replied, her heart sinking within her.

“I’m looking for a place. What wages do you give?”

Lucy named the sum she had paid Pollie.

“That’s not very high for a general,” observed the woman.

“It is a very quiet situation,” said Lucy.

“H’m!—out in some country place, I suppose?”

“No,” answered Lucy, “my house is in Bloomsbury.” She was cowed into giving answers when she should rather have retorted by questions. Really she did not want to question this woman, or to have anything to do with her. Yet in this place she had not courage to say so. Mrs. Brand did not come to the rescue.

“Bloomsbury houses are pretty big—too big for one woman.”

“Mine is a small house,” faltered Lucy.

“How many in family?”

“Only two,” Lucy answered; “myself and this little boy.”

“D’ye expect me to do the washing?”

Lucy was ready to cry out that she did not “expect” her to do anything, except to go away! But she was so demoralised that she meekly replied—

“My last servant did the washing, with help; but if I get one who suits me in other ways, I am willing to put the washing out.”

“Are you a widder, then?”

Lucy’s heart thumped.

“No, my husband is on a long voyage.”

“A ship-captain is he?”

“No, he is travelling for his health. He will be at home within the year.”

An expression came into the woman’s insolent eye, which Lucy did not understand, though it made her feel hot. The woman gave her head a significant little wag. It meant something apart from what she said, though her words were insolent enough.

“I reckon there won’t be much regular cooking in your place. There never is, where there isn’t a proper master. I don’t think your place will suit me.”

“I am sure it will not!” said Lucy quietly.

One or two tawdry girls who had come up to listen to this colloquy nudged each other and laughed at the discomfiture of their fellow-worker.

“Well, you’ve got rid of her,” observed Florence. “The idea of her asking all those questions! What right have they to know anything except the work which will be required of them and the wages they are to get?”

“I don’t say that,” said Lucy. “Before a woman accepts a place, I think she has a right to know whether it is quite respectable—and many little details beside. But she might have waited till I had first put some questions to her. Fancy, if I had behaved so when I went, a stranger, to look after the first appointment I had at the Institute!”

Florence made an impatient gesture.

“You compare things which have no standard of comparison,” she said. “You are a lady and know how to behave and to keep your proper place. These creatures don’t. They must be taught. If you had taken that woman in the right way, and talked down to her and cheapened her well, she would have respected you, and she might have turned out a servant good enough.”

“Florence, dear,” pleaded Lucy, “I would not wish to take any woman into my house who could behave so. And her appearance was horrid!”

“She would have done up decently enough if you had insisted on it,” said Florence. “Why need you care how uncouth a servant looks so long as you can get plenty of work out of her? It is not as if you had a professional man in your house, and had to think of a girl’s appearance in opening the door. Do better next time. Here comes another.”

“Are you wanting a general servant, ma’am?” said the girl, advancing towards Mrs. Challoner.

This was a younger woman than the last. Better looking too, despite the draggled feather which overhung her hat. There was some pertness in her voice and manner. But Lucy was not repelled by her as by the other, and was therefore brave enough to carry on some catechism on her own side.

“You have been a general servant before?”

“Yes, m’m; I’ve never been anything else.”

“Then you have plenty of experience, and know what you are undertaking?”

“I’ve been in places, m’m, since I was fifteen. I’m twenty-two now.” She looked at least four years older.

Again Mrs. Challoner stated the wages she gave, adding some rough sketch of the duties of the place.

“I am sure a reliable girl will find it comfortable,” she said. “And now—if we agree on other things—what references have you to give me?”

The rather haggard face fell; but the pert voice answered undauntedly—

“I was three months in my last place, m’m, and they’ve got nothing to say against me.”

“Three months is a very short time,” commented Lucy. “Why did you leave?”

“Well, m’m, the missis had such a temper as never was.” A pause. “She couldn’t get no girl to stay.”

“She will give you a character?”

“Well, m’m, it’s a shame if she didn’t! I’ve had nothing against my character.”

“She could not know you very well in three months’ time,” mused Lucy. “But she could at least tell me the character she got when she engaged you.”

“She never asked a character,” said the girl. “Ah, m’m, she was too glad to get anybody. She knowed her own temper and that no one wouldn’t stay.”

Lucy looked at her with considering eyes.

“If I were a servant,” said she, “I would not go where my character was not sought for. I should feel sure it could not be a good place.”

The girl muttered something about ladies being sometimes hard put to it and in a dreadful hurry, and about “a poor girl having to get her bread.”

Lucy’s charity instantly accepted all such possible excuses.

“If you explained the circumstances to the mistress you lived with before this last, perhaps she would allow me to make a few inquiries about you?”

“She might,” the girl said; “but some ladies do not like to be troubled.”

“How long were you in that situation?” asked Lucy.

“Six weeks,” answered the girl. “There was a fire, and after that they made some changes, and that was why I came away.”

“But I do not like the look of this,” observed Lucy. “And what about the situation before that?”

“I don’t know where those people are,” said the girl, a sullenness coming over her. “The master bankrupted, and it was as much as I could do to get my wages.”

“You have been very unfortunate,” remarked Lucy, pondering whether this might not be simple fact, and whether justice might not demand that she should give the girl “another chance.” Still it was her present duty to get a reliable household helper, and other considerations must take second place to that absolute duty. Yet she shrank from coming to any harsh decision.

“What is the longest time you have kept any situation?” she asked.

“I was a whole year in one,” said the girl, with great self-satisfaction.

“How long is that ago?” inquired Lucy.

“It was my second place,” returned the girl, rather defiantly. “And it was a hard one. For it were a public, an’ the master, he drank, and the missus were dead, and there were six children. I might have been there till to-day,” she went on, “but I had to go into ’orspital, I were that worn out.”

What a life history if it were true! And what a terrible imagination if it were false! But why had the girl found it so hard to keep other places if she had so readily endured the slavery indicated in her words?

“I am afraid you will not suit me,” said Lucy, very gently. “I fear you have had no opportunity to get the experience and training I require.”

“I’ve always been in places, m’m,” answered the girl tartly. “If ten years o’ different places doesn’t give one experience, I don’t know what will!”

“Experience of changes,” said Lucy, “but not experience in work and in regular household ways.”

The girl looked in Lucy’s face and saw that her dismissal was decided.

“Oh, well, m’m, please yourself!” she said. “There’s plenty o’ places goin’ that’ll suit me, and I’d not care to stay long anywhere!”

“You did better this time, Sis,” whispered Florence Brand as the damsel flounced away. “But you must not be too particular. Don’t peep too closely behind their set scenes. If they tell you a lie decently, make believe to believe it. Then, if anything turns out wrong, why, you’ve been deceived, you know, and your credit is saved.”

Lucy scarcely heard what her sister said. The squalid horror of the lives opening before her sickened and suffocated her soul, just as the fetid atmosphere of the crowded room was sickening to her body.

“Poor girl, what chance has she enjoyed?” she said. “She had not a bad face. If I had not been fixed as I am, I might have given her a trial, and have helped her to be glad ‘to stay long somewhere.’ One couldn’t wonder that she wasn’t, if all she told is true.”

Florence laughed.

“True?” she echoed. “Not one word of it! I believe she found out that you weren’t the mistress for her before she told you about ‘the public.’ She reckoned that would choke you off. They are cute enough for anything. True! Why, she openly told you one flaring fib, and you never noticed it!”

“What was it?” asked the bewildered Lucy.

“She said she went into service at fifteen and is twenty-two; and next she said she had been in service ten years. And yet you’re ready to cry over her! Oh, my dear, simple sister! You need not be so sorry for her—be sorry for yourself, in the power of such as she. She needs no pity!”

“This only shows her greater need of pity,” said Lucy; but she had to stoop and soothe Hugh, who was plucking at her dress and saying—

“Let us come away, mamma! I don’t like these people, and the room is so nasty!”

“Poor little dear, he isn’t used to it!” said a voice which Lucy had not heard before.

It was that of a lady seated on a chair half behind the little sofa, which was drawn forward crosswise. This lady was knitting a child’s stocking. She was quietly and neatly dressed, and did not look much more than thirty years of age. She had a pale face, with a sort of enduring stillness upon it, not unlike that of one bearing up against some chronic pain or trouble. She patted Hugh’s shoulder kindly and smiled up into Lucy’s face, adding—

“It’s a great pity any of us have to get used to it!”

“Yes, indeed,” Lucy responded, instantly recognising that she was addressed by another “expectant mistress.” “We have been here more than an hour already, and nobody has even approached me but two most unsuitable women! It is a terrible waste of time!” she added, thinking of the brief wintry daylight in which she had to finish her seaside sketches, which the picture-dealer desired to have in hand before the New Year, and which she herself wished to complete before she took up her teaching at the Institute.

“You don’t know what it is yet!” said the lady, quite cheerfully. “This is the third day I’ve been here—staying on till the afternoon. I’ve seen nobody suitable yet.”

“May I ask if you have ever hired a servant here before?” said Mrs. Challoner.

“I have not,” replied the stranger; “but my husband’s sister did. She came here daily for nearly a week, and when she got a suitable girl, she only stayed two months, because she heard of another place in a neighbourhood she liked better!”

“I wonder almost that you are making this experiment after that experience!” remarked Lucy.

“It does not seem very encouraging,” answered the other; “but what is one to do? And when we get them they don’t work, and don’t they waste and destroy! I wish we could do without servants altogether! I think I could get along finely—if it wasn’t for opening the street door. One cannot do that, you know.”

Lucy was silent, considering. It seemed to her, at that moment, that if Charlie was at home, and no duty of breadwinning lay upon herself, then rather than endure a prolongation and repetition of her present experience, she would spend the remainder of her life in opening her street door to all comers.

The lady accepted her silence as sympathy.

“My sister-in-law says the same,” she went on. “She and her husband have a flat—a pretty little flat near the Parks, where they are rather expensive, so they have one with only five rooms—and they’ve just got one little child. And Minnie says she could manage quite well, if it wasn’t for taking out the perambulator.”

“I always took out my boy myself,” said Lucy, with her arm about Hugh’s neck, “and I often opened the hall door—generally, indeed—because I could see who was coming from my window, and it saved my maid’s running up a flight of stairs.”

The stranger looked at her rather coldly.

“That is the way servants get spoiled,” she remarked. “And they don’t stay with you a bit longer for all your pains.”

“Mine stayed with me seven years, and has only gone away to get married,” said Lucy quietly.

The other gave a little laugh.

“You had better mention that to the girls,” she answered. “I believe it recommends a place. But most of them will feel they have been deceived with false hopes unless the event comes off within seven months! Seven years! Well, you’ve got something to learn now. You have not cut your mistress-teeth yet.”

Lucy felt that her mind was opening to new lines of thought in the world about her. She had always known that Florence thought in these ways; but she had thought that was just Florence. Her own small circle of intimates were people of another sort, being all people who had done real work of some kind or another, and were proud of it, and would have felt hurt to be suspected of idleness. But here were women who were prepared to work (for a glance at the knitter’s hands revealed that truth about her), but who were so ashamed of work that they could do it only out of sight, and were under the mean necessity of hiring a mask to do whatever people must see! How odd it was! And then it flashed into Lucy’s mind that one can scarcely expect very worthy girls to rush eagerly to discharge tasks that other women are simply ashamed to do! If it be so disgraceful to open one’s own door, or to wheel out one’s own baby, why should other women not feel it still more disgraceful to open other people’s doors and wheel out other people’s babies? Why should they not be eager to rush from these discredited duties towards others not yet lying under the same ban?

At that moment the groups in the middle of the room parted a little, and the elderly female clerk of the registry came towards Mrs. Challoner with an unctuous smile spread over her face. Following at her heels was another woman, who was, however, nearly eclipsed by her ample figure.

“I think I have found somebody to suit you, ma’am,” she said. “I think we have been most fortunate. Just the sort of person to please you is not to be found every day. It is quite Providential. I’m so glad you should see her before there is any chance of her being snapped up. I’d advise you to settle with her, madam,” she added, bending over, in a familiar whisper which made Lucy draw back. “She’d have a dozen chances if she were here half an hour. Her very appearance is enough. You’ll speak to me, please, madam, before you go away.”

As she moved aside for her “introduction” to step forward, Lucy beheld a neat, crisp little figure which might have stepped out of a Royal Academy picture of a happy cottage home or mansion nursery. This was not a young woman; she was between forty and fifty, dressed in black, with a small prim bonnet enclosing a neat white cap and tied with narrow white ribbons. The face within the bonnet was well-featured and softly ruddy, the pleasant middle-aged bloom being set off to advantage by the slight frosting of the hair visible beneath the cap. A small straw basket was held firmly in the neat cotton-gloved hands. An angel with shining wings could have hardly looked more apart than she did in that throng of coarse tawdry femininity, nor have been a more unexpected apparition. A well-trained respect, without a dash of servility, was in her voice and manner as she said—

“I am Jessie Morison, ma’am. I understand you want a servant.”

“She’s just your style, Luce,” whispered Florence; “but she’s too old! It’s no use taking people after others have got all the work out of them.”

(To be continued.)