“No, no, not in her shoes to steal anything, I hope; but I can do housework, sweep, make beds, sew, and make myself useful,—­as I will show, if I can have a trial.”

“An’ ye may well say that’s a hape more nor she iver could.  But if it’s a thrial ye want, it’s me that’ll give’t ye as soon as ye plase.  I’ll answer for ye’s to Misthress Millicent,—­and that’s what I niver did for Bridget, and it’s right glad I am of that.  Now niver fear, me darlint, it’s a powerful good place, it is too, to thim as kapes the right side o’ Misthress Millicent; for she’s the only daughter, and the mother is dead and gone, poor soul!”

They were now approaching the opulent mansion over the cuisine of which our special police-woman had so long had the honor of presiding.  Almost delighted enough with her capture to forget, if not forgive, her fugitive fellow-servant Bridget, the florid and fat Aunt Peggy Muldoony hurried along as if the bag were a feather, her words flowing like a spring flood, and introduced her charge at a postern-door into her own house, as she called it.  This was, in fact, a very comfortable and somewhat spacious dwelling, which stood almost distinct in the rear of the mansion in which the Hopkins family proper resided, so that there should be ample accommodations for servants, and the steam of cooking could not annoy the grand parlors.  Here we might leave the beautiful waif, so strangely picked up in the dark street, to the working of her own genius.  She had fallen into a place which had control of all the chamber-work of a modern palace, with ample assistance.  Aunt Peggy, her guardian angel, at once instructed her in the routine of the duties, and she very soon had occasion to wonder how the care of so many beautiful flowers, vases, statues, pictures, and objects of splendor and taste, not to speak of beds that the Queen of Sheba might have envied, could have been committed to a domestic who could be tempted to run away with a few hundred dollars’ worth of silks and laces.  The legal owner himself could hardly enjoy his well-appointed paradise better than she did, in keeping every leaf up to its highest beauty.  It must require a pretty strong dose of tyranny to drive her away, she thought.

But tyranny, if it were there, did not show itself.  After a number of serious, but vain attempts, on the part of Miss Millicent, to gratify her curiosity by unravelling the mystery of her new servant, whose industry, skill, and taste produced visible and very satisfactory effects in every part of the mansion, she settled down to the conclusion, that, finally, a treasure had fallen to her lot which it was best for her to keep as carefully as possible and make the most of.  She could now smile and assume airs of great condescension when her worthy female friends complained of careless, incompetent, and unfaithful domestics, and have the pleasure of being teased in vain to know what she did to be so well served.