and “hired men” are representative of their kind.  Therefore they put upper class servants in the same category—­regardless of whether they are uncouth and illiterate, or persons of refined appearance and manner who often have considerable cultivation, acquired not so much at school as through the constant contact with ultra refinement of surroundings, and not infrequently through the opportunity for world-wide travel.

And yet so insistently has this obloquy of the word “servant” spread that every one sensitive to the feelings of others avoids using it exactly as one avoids using the word “cripple” when speaking to one who is slightly lame.  Yet are not the best of us “servants” in the Church?  And the highest of us “servants” of the people and the State?

To be a slattern in a vulgar household is scarcely an elevated employment, but neither is working in a sweat-shop, or belonging to a calling that is really degraded; which is otherwise about all that equal lack of ability would procure.  On the other hand, consider the vocation of a lady’s maid or “courier” valet and compare the advantages these enjoy (to say nothing of their never having to worry about overhead expenses), with the opportunities of those who have never been out of the “factory” or the “store” or further away than the adjoining town in their lives.  As for a nurse, is there any vocation more honorable?  No character in E.F.  Benson’s “Our Family Affairs” is more beautiful or more tenderly drawn than that of “Beth,” who was not only nurse to the children of the Archbishop of Canterbury but one of the most dearly beloved of the family’s members—­her place was absolutely next to their mother’s in the very heart of the household always.

Two years ago, Anna, who had for a lifetime been Mrs. Gilding’s personal maid, died.  Every engagement of that seemingly frivolous family was cancelled, even the invitations for their ball.  Not one of the family but mourned for what she truly was, their humble but nearest friend.  Would it have been so much better, so much more dignified, for these two women, who lived long useful years in closest association with every cultivating influence of life, to have lived on in their native villages and worked in a factory, or to have had a little store of their own?  Does this false idea of dignity—­since it is false—­go so far as that?

=HOW MANY SERVANTS FOR CORRECT SERVICE?=

It stands to reason that one may expect more perfect service from a “specialist” than from one whose functions are multiple.  But small houses that have a double equipment—­meaning an alternate who can go in the kitchen, and two for the dining-room—­can be every bit as well run, so far as essentials go, as the palaces of the Gildings and the Worldlys, though of course not with the same impressiveness.  But good service is badly handicapped if, when the waitress goes out, there is no one to open the door, or when the cook goes out, there is no one to prepare a meal.