“Not; but why not?” asked the man good-naturedly.  And his wife added briskly, “Why did you stop, Justine?”

“Because Mrs. Salisbury has been ordering all this month,” Justine said.  “And that, of course, makes it impossible for me to keep track of what is spent.  These last four weeks I have only been keeping an account; I haven’t attempted to keep within any limit.”

“Ah, you see that’s it,” Kane Salisbury said triumphantly.  “Of course that’s it!  Well, Mrs. Salisbury will have to let you go back to the ordering then.  D’ye see, Sally?  Naturally, Justine can’t do a thing while you’re buying at random—­”

“My dear, we have dealt with Lewis & Sons ever since we were married,” Mrs. Salisbury said, smiling with great tolerance, and in a soothing voice, “Justine, for some reason, doesn’t like Lewis & Sons—­”

“It isn’t that,” said the maid quickly.  “It’s just that it’s against the rules of the college for anyone else to do any ordering, unless, of course, you and I discussed it beforehand and decided just what to spend.”

“You mean, unless I simply went to market for you?” asked the mistress, in a level tone.

“Well, it amounts to that—­yes.”

Mrs. Salisbury threw her husband one glance.

“Well, I’ll tell you what we have decided in the morning, Justine,” she said, with dignity.  “That’s all.  You needn’t wait.”

Justine went back to her kitchen, and Mr. Salisbury, smiling, said: 

“Sally, how unreasonable you are!  And how you do dislike that girl!”

The outrageous injustice of this scattered to the winds Mrs. Salisbury’s last vestige of calm, and, after one scathing summary of the case, she refused to discuss it at all, and opened the evening paper with marked deliberation.

For the next two or three weeks she did all the marketing herself, but this plan did not work well.  Bills doubled in size, and so many things were forgotten, or were ordered at the last instant by telephone, and arrived too late, that the whole domestic system was demoralized.

Presently, of her own accord, Mrs. Salisbury reestablished Justine with her allowance, and with full authority to shop when and how she pleased, and peace fell again.  But, smoldering in Mrs. Salisbury’s bosom was a deep resentment at this peculiar and annoying state of affairs.  She began to resent everything Justine did and said, as one human being shut up in the same house with another is very apt to do.

No schooling ever made it easy to accept the sight of Justine’s leisure when she herself was busy.  It was always exasperating, when perhaps making beds upstairs, to glance from the window and see Justine starting for market, her handsome figure well displayed in her long dark coat, her shining braids half hidden by her simple yet dashing hat.

“I walked home past Perry’s,” Justine would perhaps say on her return, “to see their prize chrysanthemums.  They really are wonderful!  The old man took me over the greenhouses himself, and showed me everything!”