“Half a dozen!  Oh, dear!  We have half a dozen a month sometimes!  But come, let us go up to my room; I have some new prints to show you.  They are exquisite.  My father bought them for me last week.”

The two young ladies ascended to Helen’s chamber in the third story.  But the book of prints was not to be found there.  “It is in the parlor, I recollect now,” said Helen, ringing the bell as she spoke, with a quick, strong jerk.

In about three or four minutes, and just as the young lady’s patience was exhausted and her fingers were beginning to itch for another pull at the bell rope, the tardy waiting women appeared.

“Hannah—­Go down into the parlor, and bring me off of the piano a book you will find there.  It is a broad flat book, with loose sheets in it.”

This was said in a tone of authority.  The domestic turned away without speaking and went down stairs.  In a little while she came back, and handed Helen a book, answering the description given.  But it was a portfolio of music.

“O no!  Not this!” said she, with a curl of the lip, and an impatient tossing of her head.  “How stupid you are, Hannah!  The book I want, contains prints, and this is only a music book!  There!  Take it back, and bring me the book of prints.”

Hannah took the book, and muttering as she went out, returned to the parlor, down two long flights of stairs, and laid it upon the piano.

“If you want the pictures, you may get them yourself, Miss; you’ve got more time to run up and down stairs than I have.”

As she said this Hannah left the parlor, and the book of prints lying upon the piano, and went back to the chamber she had been engaged in cleaning up when called away by Helen’s bell.  It was not long after she had resumed her occupation, before the bell sounded loudly through the passages.  Hannah smiled bitterly, and with an air of resolution, as she listened to the iron summons.

“Pull away to your heart’s content, Miss!” she said, half audibly.  “When you call me again take care and know what you want me for.  I’ve got something else to do besides running up and down stairs to bring you pictures.  Why didn’t you look at them while you were in the parlor, or, take them up with you, if you wanted them in your chamber?”

“Did you ever see the like!” ejaculated Helen, deeply disturbed at finding both her direction and her subsequent summons unattended to.  “That’s just the way we are constantly served by these abominable creatures.”

Two or three heavy jerks at the bell rope followed these remarks.