“Very well, Jane,” said Mrs. Perkins; “if that is the way you feel about it we’ll have to part, I suppose.  I am sorry, but—­”

The sentence was not finished, for Jane rushed weeping from the room, and within a few days, her place having been filled, the house knew her no more, except as an occasional visitor, ostensibly to see the children.  Later she got a place to her satisfaction, and one night the Perkins were invited to dine with Jane’s new employers.  They went and found their old-time “butler” at the very zenith of her powers.  She served the dinner as she had never served one in her palmiest days in the Perkins’s dining-room; and when all was over, and when Mrs. Perkins went up-stairs to don her wrap to return home, she found Jane above waiting to help her.

“I am glad to see you so happy, Jane,” she said, as the girl held her cloak.

“Ah, ma’am, I’m not very happy.”

“You ought to be, here.  Your work to-night was perfect.”

“Yes,” said Jane, “it had to be, for”—­here her voice fell to a whisper—­“I don’t dare let it be different, ma’am.  Mrs. Harkins is a regular divvle, and the ould gentleman—­well, ma’am, he do swear finer ’n any gentleman I ever met.  It’s just the place for me.”

And Jane sighed as her old mistress left her.

“Wasn’t she great, Bess?” said Thaddeus, on the way home.

“She was, indeed,” replied Mrs. Perkins, with a smile.  “It’s a pity I’m not a divvle.”

Thaddeus laughed.  “That’s so,” he said; “or that I never learned to swear like a gentleman, eh?”

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