"A very good matter indeed! I'm going to make a change. I've had enough scolding and faultfinding, as I told mistress a minute ago."
"I suppose she's given you a month's notice, and you deserve it richly for your saucy tongue."
"You're a fine one to talk, for I couldn't hold a candle to you! Yes, she told me I had better look out for another place, and I told her it was just what I had thought of doing."
"Well, I hope you'll be taught a lesson, for I tell you there aren't many mistresses as kind and considerate as Mrs. Groombridge, and you'll find it out to your cost, I'm afraid," said Ruth.
"You've got no cause to complain, for every one of them pets you up to the skies," replied Jane.
"Ruth's earned all she gets, and so have you, Jane, for the matter of that. She's obliging and respectful, and you're disagreeable and pert half your time," said cook.
"I ought to be flattered, I'm sure," retorted Jane, tossing her head as she sat down to continue her work of trimming a hat with some particularly smart ribbons and flowers. The month passed and Jane left, a new housemaid coming in the same day.
"A different sort to Jane, I can see," whispered cook to Ruth, as the new-comer went upstairs to take her bonnet off. It was a pretty, modest face that presently showed itself in the kitchen; but there were traces of sadness about the eyes and mouth, and the new housemaid's dress was trimmed with crape.
"Poor thing! perhaps she's lost her mother," thought Ruth, and cook's usually sharp voice softened as she asked the girl her name.
"Alice Martin," was the timid reply.