The woman took the car fare with the same stolidity she had shown through the whole interview.  “I do not think I would like you for a madam, either,” she said quietly as she went out.

The Polish girl bounced from her seat as soon as the door was closed.

“She no good to talk to you like that,” she exclaimed.  “She old crank, anyway.  You not like her.  See me—­I young, strong; I cook, wash, iron, clean.  I do everything.  You do notting.  I cook good, too; not so much fancy, but awful good.  My last madam, I with her one year.  She sick, go South yesterday.  She cry, say ’I so sorry, Katie; you been so good to me.’  I cry, too.  Read what she say about me.”

I could read between the lines of the rather odd letter of recommendation the girl handed me.  I had dealt with many girls of Katie’s type in my teaching days.  I knew the childish temper, the irritating curiosity, the petty jealousy, the familiarity which one not understanding would deem impertinence, with which I would have to contend if I engaged her.  But the other applicant for my work, the grim vision who had just left, decided me.  I would try this eager girl if her terms were reasonable—­and they were.

As I preceded her into the kitchen I had a sudden qualm.  I knew Dicky’s fastidious taste, and that underneath all his good-natured unconventionality he had rigid ideas of his own upon some topics.  I happened to remember that nothing made him so nervous and irritable as bad service in a restaurant.  His idea of a good waiter was a well-trained automaton with no eyes or ears.  How would he like this enthusiastic, irrepressible girl?  It was too late now, however.  I was committed to a week of her service.

I had a luxurious afternoon.  Katie in the kitchen sang softly over her work some minor-cadenced Polish folk-song, and I nestled deep in an armchair by the sunniest window, dipped deep into the pages of magazines and newspapers which I had not read.  I realized with a start that I was out of touch with the doings of the outside world, something which had not happened to me before for years, save in the few awful days of my mother’s last illness.  I really must catch up again.

I was so deep in a vivid description of the desolation in Belgium that I did not hear Dicky enter.  I started as he kissed me.

“Headache better, sweetheart?” he added, lover-like remembering and making much of the slight headache I had had when he left that morning.  “It must be, or you wouldn’t be able to read that horror.”  He closed the magazine playfully and drew me to my feet.

“I am perfectly well,” I replied, “and I have good news for you.  We have a maid, a trifle rough in her manner, but one who I think will be very good.”

“That’s fine,” Dicky said heartily.  “I’d much rather come home to find you comfortably reading than scorching your face and reddening your hands in a kitchen.”

“Say, Missis Graham!”