Grace had been intending to call upon Mrs. Tracy ever since she came to the park.  ‘Not,’ as she said to her friend, Edith Hastings, ’for the woman’s sake, for she knew her to be vulgar:  but because she was a neighbor and the sister-in-law of Arthur Tracy,’ And so at last she came, partly out of compliment and partly on business, into which last she plunged at once.  She was going to the mountains with Mr. Harrington and Miss Hastings:  her cook, who had been with her seven years, had gone to attend a sick mother, and had recommended as a fit person to take her place the woman who had just left Tracy Park.

’I do not like to take a servant without first knowing something of her from her last employer,’ she said:  ’and, if you do not mind, I should like to ask if Martha left for anything very bad.’

Mrs. Tracy colored scarlet, and for a moment was silent.  She could not tell that fine lady in the white muslin dress, with seas of lace and embroidery, that Martha had called her second classy, and stingy and strooping, and mean, because she objected to the amount of coal burned, and bread thrown away, and time consumed at the table, besides turning down the gas in the kitchen when she thought it too light, to say nothing of turning it off at the meter at ten o’clock, just when the servants were beginning to enjoy themselves.  All this she felt would scarcely interest a person like Mrs. Atherton, who might sympathize with Martha more than with herself, so she finally said: 

’Martha was saucy to me, and on the whole it was better for them all to go; and so I am doing my own work.’

‘Doing your own work!’ and Grace gave a little cry of surprise, while her shoulders shrugged meaningly, and made Mrs. Tracy almost as angry as she had been with Martha when she called her mean and second-class.  ’It cannot be possible that you cook, and wash, and iron, and do everything,’ Mrs. Atherton continued.  ’My dear Mrs. Tracy, you can never stand it in a house like this, and Mr. Arthur would not like it if he knew.  Why he kept as many as six servants, and sometimes more.  Pray let me advise you, and commend to you a good girl; who lived with me three years, and can do everything, from dressing my hair to making a blanc-mange.  I only parted with her because she was sick, and now that she is well, her place is filled.  Try her, and do not make a servant of yourself.  It is not fitting that you should.’

Grace was fond of giving advice, and had said more than she intended saying when she began, but Mrs. Tracy, though annoyed, was not angry, and consented to receive the girl who had lived at Brier Hill three years, and who, she reflected, could be of use to her in many ways.