"I need not say, my dear Letitia," she wrote, "that a good servant is merely the result of a sensible and far-seeing mistress. Be firm with her, but not necessarily unsympathetic. Remember that the servant-girl question and its many evils constitute a grave national problem. I think you may consider yourselves lucky. Anna Carter appears to be an excellent servant."
This letter reached us the day before we returned to New York. Letitia read it aloud to me at breakfast as we sat before our morning eggs. It had a prosaic sound, but—well, morning eggs are not freighted with romance. Unfortunately, we were neither of us built for a diet of rose-leaves and dew-drops, delightful though they would have been, during the honeymoon. I am, however, bound to say that Letitia's extremely healthy appetite did not disenchant me. Nor, when I returned for a second egg, furtively during the first week, but more boldly later on, did Letitia repine at my materialism. One thing we did avoid—and that was the distasteful discussion of food. We ate what was placed before us without comment. Only once was this tacit rule broken. It was when, at dinner, Letitia rompingly annexed an evil oyster. Even then, she merely uttered a little cry of pain—which went to my heart—and dropped the subject; also the oyster.
"It is really awfully good of Aunt Julia," she said, pretending not to notice that I had arrived at egg number three. "She is a dear, good old soul. I am delighted at the prospect of a colored maid. Aren't you, Archie?"
"They are always very good-tempered and docile," I replied, "and with you, Letitia, any girl will be exceedingly happy. Ah, in the years to come, Anna Carter may be our 'old retainer,' to be pensioned off. Think of her weeping, and begging to be allowed to remain with us—clinging to us, as it were, and even offering to stay without wages."
"Which I should never allow,"—Letitia's tone was wonderfully firm—"I can't imagine how self-respecting people permit such a thing. They always do it in plays. I shan't countenance it. If Anna persists in staying with us, when she is too old to work, then she shall have exactly the same wages. Am I not right, Archie?"
"Always," I cried admiringly; "always, my dear girl."
"I think," said Letitia musingly, "I think a colored maid always looks so neat and attractive in a plain black dress, buttoned down the front, and a white cap—something fluffy and lacey—a wide, stiff, white collar and pretty cuffs. I shall dress Anna Carter like that. I have quite made up my mind to it. Oh, Archie," she went on rapturously, "don't you think that the bonnes in Paris—you see them in the Champs Elysées, and everywhere—look perfectly lovely in the caps with the long satin ribbons trailing to the ground?"
"But they are nurses, dear," I suggested, just for the sake of arguing with my little wife.
"That doesn't matter at all," she cried triumphantly. "There's no law to prevent our dressing Anna in just that style, if we like, is there, Archie? You must admit that there isn't. I shall get her a pretty cap, with yards of olive-green ribbon, to match the burlap on the dining-room wall. Isn't it a charming idea? And colored people love a bit of finery—a ribbon or so. I can imagine her delight. I hope she isn't fearfully colored—an unbecoming shade—as green would be such a bad match. We should be obliged to have red, and that would be so glaring with the green walls. I can't help feeling a bit sorry—since we have heard from Aunt Julia—that we didn't have red burlap in the dining-room. But one can't think of everything, can one, Archie?"
"No, dear," I said soothingly. "You are a wonderful little woman to have thought of all this."