But she could not talk of anything else. Presently she burst out afresh.
"Dear me, when I think of the way Ma used to manage 'em! No nonsense there; it was walk a chalk line in Ma's house! Your grandmother," she said to Alexandra, with stern relish, "had had a pack of slaves about her in HER young days. But, of course, Sally," she added charitably, "you've been ill, and things do have to run themselves when one's ill—"
"You don't get the idea, Auntie," Sandy said blithely. "Mother pays for efficiency. Justine isn't a mere extra pair of hands; she's a trained professional worker. She's just like a stenographer, except that what she does is ten times harder to learn than stenography. We can no more ask her to get tea than Dad could ask his head bookkeeper to—well, to drop in here some Sunday and O.K. Mother's household accounts. It's an age of specialization, Aunt Martha."
"It's an age of utter nonsense," Mrs. Otis said forcibly. "But if your mother and father like to waste their money that way—"
"There isn't much waste of money to it," Mrs. Salisbury put in neatly, "for Justine manages on less than I ever did. I think there's been only one week this fall when she hasn't had a balance."
"A balance of what?"
"A surplus, I mean. A margin left from her allowance."
The pink wool fell heavily into Mrs. Otis's broad lap. "She handles your money for you, does she, Sally?"
"Why, yes. She seems eminently fitted for it. And she does it for a third less, Mattie, truly. She more than saves the difference in her wages."
"You let her buy things and pay tradesmen, do you?"