This page has been validated.
LOOKING FOR A PLACE.
33

said, "you look kilt with the cold, and being questioned at this way, and no use either." Lucy was exhausted, and the kind word, and not the concluding intimation, opened a fountain of tears. "Och, child! ye should not fret," continued her consoler, "ye'll be after soon finding a place. It is not with you as with them that an't born in their native land — like my poor Judy M'Phealan!"

Mrs. Broadson's return interrupted this flow of kindness; and that lady, after higgling about wages, and making many comments upon the extravagant demands of servants, and their worthlessness "nowadays," agreed to receive Lucy the next Monday morning. This was almost a measure of desperation on Mrs. Lee's part. She had fruitlessly exhausted her day, and this was apparently the best situation that had offered. The family was small. There was an air of order and thrift in the house, and that, with the kindness of the Irish woman, Lucy's only fellow-servant, had decided Mrs. Lee. "Sure!" said this same woman, as the door closed after Mrs. Lee, with a face so changed that she scarcely seemed the same, "sure you do not mane to give this one the place you promised to Judy?"

"I mean to have two strings to my bow. If Judy don't come — "

"But sure she'll be after coming."

"Well, if she does, Biddy, you may take time to look her up another place. It's natural, you know, I should prefer an American girl."

"And this is the way you ladies keep your word to us, and then complain that we are not up to the mark! Poor Judy! God help her!"