“Don’t you think that’s ridiculous, Kane?” his wife asked eagerly.

“We-el,” the man of the house said temperately, “I don’t know that I do.  You see, otherwise the girl has a string tied on her all the time.  People in our position, after all, needn’t assume that we’re too good to open our own door—­”

“That’s exactly it, sir,” Owen agreed eagerly; “Mother says that that’s one of the things that have upset the whole system for so long!  Just the convention that a lady can’t open her own door—­”

“But we haven’t found the scale of wages yet—­” Mrs. Salisbury interrupted sweetly but firmly.  Alexandra, however, resumed the recital of the duties of one maid.

“‘She will not be expected to assume the care of young children,’” she read, “nor to sleep in the room with them.  She will not be expected to act as chaperone or escort at night.  She—­’”

“It doesn’t say that, Sandy!”

“Oh, yes, it does!  And, listen!  ’Note.  Employers are respectfully requested to maintain as formal an attitude as possible toward the maid.  Any intimacy, or exchange of confidences, is especially to be avoided’”—­Alexandra broke off to laugh, and her mother laughed with her, but indignantly.

“Insulting!” she said lightly.  “Does anyone suppose for an instant that this is a serious experiment?”

“Come, that doesn’t sound very ridiculous to me,” her husband said.  “Plenty of women do become confidential with their maids, don’t they?”

“Dear me, how much you do know about women!” Alexandra said, kissing the top of her father’s head.  “Aren’t you the bad old man!”

“No; but one might hope that an institution of this kind would put the American servant in her place,” Mrs. Salisbury said seriously, “instead of flattering her and spoiling her beyond all reason.  I take my maid’s receipt for salary in advance; I show her the bathroom and the library—­that’s the idea, is it?  Why, she might be a boarder!  Next, they’ll be asking for a place at the table and an hour’s practice on the piano.”

“Well, the original American servant, the ‘neighbor’s girl,’ who came in to help during the haying season, and to put up the preserves, probably did have a place at the table,” Mr. Salisbury submitted mildly.

“Mother thinks that America never will have a real servant class,” Owen added uncertainly; “that is, until domestic service is elevated to the—­the dignity of office work, don’t you know?  Until it attracts the nicer class of women, don’t you know?  Mother says that many a good man’s fear of old age would be lightened, don’t you know?—­if he felt that, in case he lost his job, or died, his daughters could go into good homes, and grow up under the eye of good women, don’t you know?”

“Very nice, Owen, but not very practical!” Mrs. Salisbury said, with her indulgent, motherly smile.  “Oh, dear me, for the good old days of black servants, and plenty of them!” she sighed.  For though Mrs. Salisbury had been born some years after the days of plenty known to her mother on her grandfather’s plantation, before the war, she was accustomed to detailed recitals of its grandeurs.