"That I am honest and willing and capable. I am all those things, I can assure you. Perhaps you won't think so when you see me get back to normalcy. I must change my make-up if I want a job as house servant. I think I'll be a Swede. Josie Larson will be a good name. I must say I feel better if I'm Josie. I'm always afraid I'll forget to answer as Sally."
Alice Chisholm's eyes danced merrily as she watched Josie O'Gorman make herself ready to apply for a housemaid's position. First the henna wig was pulled off and Josie brushed out her neat sandy braids that had been tightly coiled around her head. She parted her hair in the middle and then pulled it tightly back in a hard knot, carefully disclosing her ears, something no person of any breeding was supposed to do at that time. The knot was placed at exactly the wrong angle, giving a strangely comic look to her profile. The georgette dinner dress was discarded for the tweed suit but the suit was so put on that all semblance of natty cut was lost. The skirt was on slightly askew and pulled up in front and down in the back. The belt to the Norfolk jacket was drawn too tight and the effect was blousy from the rear and what Alice called "a poor white folk's tuck" in the fore. Josie's sailor hat she placed on the back of her head, carefully pulling it down so that one ear was pushed down by the crown. The despised rouge was wiped from her cheeks and artistically applied to her nose—not much, but just a suspicion.
"Splendid! Splendid!" cried Alice. "I don't believe you will need a reference. You would have to be honest to look like that."
The reference was written, however, and signed A. Chisholm. With it tightly clasped in a hand upon which Josie had drawn a large white cotton glove, a finishing touch to her costume, the would-be housemaid silently crept from the Elberta Inn and, with an extra dull look in her eyes, rang the front door bell at the Waller house.
[CHAPTER XII]
CHESTER HUNT'S NEW MAID
"Nobody home!" was Josie's disappointed verdict after she had waited a few minutes and there was no response to her ring. She rang again, this time with sharp decision. She heard the opening of a door upstairs and then the lower hall was flooded with light and a sound of quick, light footsteps on the stairs and the front door was jerked open somewhat impatiently. Josie looked stolidly into the handsome countenance of Chester Hunt.
"Well, what is it?" he asked brusquely, taking in with some amusement the awkward little figure before him.
"I bane come to work for you."
"Oh! In answer to my ad?"
"Sure!"