to my great pleasure that not content with scrubbing the floor, she had also attacked the stove with hot water, soap, and scrubbing brush, with the result that my hard work of the previous day was all undone and the whole room well sprinkled with black specks and the stove a mass of rust.  Two weeks of similar experiences finished our acquaintance, and she gave place to No. 6.  After I had spent three weeks teaching No. 6 cooking, she quietly informed me that she was leaving at the end of the week to take up a place as cook in Rosario, as she now knew enough cooking for the position; so I had not only wasted all my time in teaching her, but had paid her into the bargain for learning enough to leave me.

The next servant, No. 7, Alexandrina, was, I think, the worst.  She was a Spaniard from Barcelona.  She was an awful individual, and would insist on wearing clothes of so light and scanty a nature that she was not decent to have about the house; also, whenever we happened to have a joke of any sort to laugh over at meals, she used immediately to come in from the kitchen to see what was going on, and I had the greatest difficulty to get her to return to the kitchen.  I had to get rid of her, because her moral reputation was anything but good, and two days in the week she refused to get out of bed, and told me to do my own dirty work, as she was ill; so at the end of two weeks she had to go.  No. 8, Maria, was a girl direct from the sierras, and was very stupid and silly, and did not a single thing.  One day I was buying vegetables, and she asked me why I wanted to buy roots, and when I told her they were to eat, she said even poor people could afford to buy meat, and she would not eat them.  One day I took this girl out with me to do some shopping, and called on some people who had a piano.  It was twilight, and someone was playing the piano, and she rushed in the room and out again, with her face very white, and said someone was beating a big, black animal in the corner of the room, and it was screaming dreadfully with the pain.  This girl’s mother was a very talkative old lady, and would insist on coming with three children every day and taking up her position in the kitchen, and when once she commenced to talk, one could not get away from her.  At the end of the month she came for the girl’s pay, and wanted me to pay her more money, which I was not willing to do, as I had been unable to teach her much; so she asked if her daughter might go away for the day and night, as she had to bath.  This I was only too willing to agree to, and let her go; but they returned in the middle of the night, and removed all her belongings.  After a few days I managed to get No. 9, who was a widow with two children:  but she only stayed two weeks.  Our tenth and last attempt was made with No. 4 once more, as she was again able to come to us.  She stayed two months, when we went away for four weeks’ holiday.  A week after our return I paid her in full for the