“I have come here to work,” she said after a long pause, during which she seemed trying to collect her thoughts.  “I am Sarah Judd.  Mrs. Morrison said I must come here on Saturday, the tenth day of July, to go to work.  This is the tenth day of July.”

“H-m—­h-m; I see.  When did Mrs. Morrison tell you that?”

“It was last September.”

“Oh; so she hired you a year in advance and didn’t tell you, afterward, that she was going abroad?”

“I didn’t see her since, sir.”

Mr. Conant was perplexed.  He went into the kitchen and told Aunt Hannah about it and the good woman came at once to interview Sarah Judd, followed by Mary Louise, who had just finished wiping the dishes.

“This seems very unfortunate for you,” began Mrs. Conant, regarding the strange girl with mild interest.  “I suppose, when Mrs. Morrison engaged you, she expected to pass the summer at the Lodge, and afterward she forgot to notify you.”

Sarah Judd considered this soberly; then nodded her head.

“I’ve walked all the way from Millbank,” she said with another sigh.

“Then you’ve had nothing to eat!” exclaimed Mary Louise, with ready sympathy.  “May I get her something, Aunt Hannah?”

“Of course, my dear.”

Both Mr. and Mrs. Conant felt rather embarrassed.

“I regret,” said the latter, “that we do not need a maid at present.  We do our own housework, you see.”

“I have left a good place in Albany to come here,” said Sarah, plaintively.

“You should have written to Mrs. Morrison,” declared the lawyer, “asking if she still required your services.  Many unforeseen things may happen during a period of ten months.”

“Mrs. Morrison, she have paid me a month in advance,” asserted the girl, in justification.  “And she paid me my expenses to come here, too.  She said I must not fail her; I should come to the Lodge on the tenth of July and do the work at the Lodge.  She did not say she would be here.  She did not say you would be here.  She told me to come and work, and she paid me a month in advance, so I could give the money to my sister, who needed it then.  And I must do as Mrs. Morrison says.  I am paid to work at the Lodge and so I must work at the Lodge.  I cannot help that, can I?”

The lawyer was a man of experience, but this queer complication astonished him.  He exchanged a questioning glance with his wife.

“In any event,” said Mrs. Conant, “the girl must stay here to-night, for it would be cruel to ask her to find her way down the mountain in the dark.  We will put her in the maid’s room, Peter, and to-morrow we can decide what to do with her.”

“Very well,” agreed Mr. Conant and retreated to the den to have his smoke.

Mary Louise arranged some food on the kitchen table for Sarah Judd and after the girl had eaten, Mrs. Conant took her to the maid’s room, which was a very pleasant and well furnished apartment quite in keeping with all the comfortable appointments at Hillcrest Lodge, although it was built behind the kitchen and formed a little wing of its own.