"Thank you a thousand times," said Miss Platt. "How kind you are. I have a maid, you know, but she's going at the end of the week. I simply couldn't bear her superior manner, and when she went off one Saturday afternoon from my very door in a handsome motor-car that was too much for me. And she wanted to practise on my piano. Servants! You'll have to help there, my dear. Change them as often as you like, but they must be willing and have some kind of friendly feeling for one. I can't bear to have people in the house who look as though they'd poison your soup on the first opportunity. Why can't we all like one another? I'm sure I'm ready enough."
Millie said: "I suppose it doesn't do to spoil them too much."
"You're right, dear, it doesn't. But as soon as I speak severely to them they give notice, and I am so tired of registry offices. I just go in and out of them all day. I do hope you're good with servants."
"I'll do my best," said Millie, smiling bravely, although her heart was already sinking at the sense of her inexperience and ignorance.
"I'm sure you will," said Miss Platt, who was now arrayed in bright blue. "Method is what this house wants. You look methodical. The very way you put your clothes on shows me that. My sister Ellen has method, but household affairs don't interest her. She lives in a world of her own. Clarice, my younger sister, has no method at all. She's the most artistic of us. She paints and sings too delightfully. Are you artistic?"
"No, I'm not," said Millie. "Not a little bit."
Miss Platt seemed for a moment disappointed. "I'm sorry for that. I do love the Arts, although I don't do anything myself. But I do encourage them wherever I can." Then she brightened again. "It's much better you shouldn't be artistic. You're more likely to have method."
"I have a brother who writes," said Millie.
"Now, isn't that wonderful!" Miss Platt was delighted. "You must bring him along. I do think I'd rather be able to write than anything. What kind of thing does he write?"
"Well, he's rather young and of course the war kept him back, but he's in the middle of a novel and he reviews books for the papers."