“Three months is a very short time,” commented Lucy. “Why did you leave?”
“Well, m’m, the missis had such a temper as never was.” A pause. “She couldn’t get no girl to stay.”
“She will give you a character?”
“Well, m’m, it’s a shame if she didn’t! I’ve had nothing against my character.”
“She could not know you very well in three months’ time,” mused Lucy. “But she could at least tell me the character she got when she engaged you.”
“She never asked a character,” said the girl. “Ah, m’m, she was too glad to get anybody. She knowed her own temper and that no one wouldn’t stay.”
Lucy looked at her with considering eyes.
“If I were a servant,” said she, “I would not go where my character was not sought for. I should feel sure it could not be a good place.”
The girl muttered something about ladies being sometimes hard put to it and in a dreadful hurry, and about “a poor girl having to get her bread.”
Lucy’s charity instantly accepted all such possible excuses.