His wife dissolved in helpless laughter. "I never believed that story for a minute," she said, "nor the Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe part, either. She simply wanted me to think that she wasn't an ordinary servant, poor thing. It would be dreadful to go drifting around the world, drudging first in one house and then in another; wouldn't it, Jimmy? I am sure I can't think what sort of a maid I should have been."
Mr. Belknap surveyed his wife smilingly. "You'd have got me all right, whatever you were doing," he assured her.
"Not really?"
"Sure! I never could have resisted those eyes, dear, nor that mouth—never in the world!" And Mr. Belknap illustrated his present susceptibility to the compelling charms of the features in question in a way which caused his pretty wife to laugh and blush, and assure him (fondly) that he was a foolish boy.
"Then you really think I would better give both the girls warning?" Mrs. Belknap asked rather faintly, visions of the empty kitchen with its manifold tasks rising fearfully in her mind.
"That's what I do when there's a bad snarl in the office," Mr. Belknap told her seriously. "A good clean breeze of discipline that sweeps everything before it is a mighty good thing at times. Let 'em go. We got along all right before we ever saw Mary MacGrotty or Jane hyphen-what-you-may-call-her, either; and we shall live all the peacefuller after they're gone."
"But the missing articles—don't you think I ought to make her give them back? Isn't it a bad thing for a young girl like Jane to think she can—be so wicked with impunity?"
"It isn't 'impunity,' as you call it, if she loses her place."
"Yes, Jimmy, it is. She could get a dozen other places to-morrow. People are so nearly frantic for help that they'll take anybody. Why, Mrs. De Puyster Jones actually told me that she expected to lose a certain amount every year. She says that it used to worry her terribly when she first began housekeeping; but now she just mentally adds it to the wages, and says nothing about it, if it isn't too outrageous."
Mr. Belknap laughed dubiously. "Why, I say, Margaret, that's what they call compounding felony, or mighty near it," he said slowly. "I don't believe I could stand for that sort of thing."