these days-as Old Chester housekeepers used to say-"Your hat is too showy, Mary; it is not suitable to your station. And also I must tell you that no respectable young woman is seen on the streets after dark without a male companionwho is, of course, a worthy young man of whom her parents approve. Therefore, if you are alone, you must return, on your evenings out, by eight o'clock in summer, and half-past seven in the winter months. These are my rules."

But all that is in the dim past; this story of the Eliots' Katy is just a memory of Old Chester's peace in days when, between mistress and maid, the incredible simplicity of loyalty and human kindness, of conscience and dignity and responsibility, worked!-and only the new people, who certainly never prayed for their "girls," had domestic problems.

It was one of these "new" people, Ruth Eliot, who took into her household a young English woman, who was practically a vagrant. The Eliots (though Unitarians) were nice enough; in fact, his father had been born in Old Chester; but she was a New Yorker, "and you know what that means!" said Old Chester. It explained, we thought, why she employed a girl who had no referenceexcept the hesitating approval of Mrs. Van Horn, the landlady at the Tavern.

The woman had arrived in Old Chester one November night at about half-past ten, on foot, in the rain. She had no umbrella-she couldn't have carried it if she had, for she was lugging a big bundle wrapped in shiny black oilcloth, and the strings cut deep into first one stout hand, and then into the other. She had a shawl over her head, and hobnail shoes on her feet. When she reached the Tavern, the Van Horns, behind the solid wooden shutters, had been sound asleep for an hour or two. Not a pin point of light could be seen, but somehow she seemed to know that it was a public house; perhaps the creaking of the old sign, swaying in the rain, informed her. At the door she fumbled in the

darkness for the bell, dangling from its socket on a rusty wire. She pulled it; waited; pulled again; heard a faint jangle far back in the sleeping houseand pulled once more. Van Horn, on the third floor, got out of bed, and still half asleep, came clumping down stairs; when, holding his candle above his head, he blinked out into the wet darkness, he said, briefly, "I swan!" The girl's face, which had been rosy with the driving rain, was whitening with exhaustion; her shawl, pinned under her chin, was dripping wet, and some locks of hair were plastered across her forehead. "Who are you?" said Van Horn.

"I'm Katy McGrath, sir. I'm lookin' for work."

"At this time of night?" said Van Horn; "where did you come from?" "Mercer; if you please, sir." "Mercer! Young woman, you ain't walked that distance?"

"Yes, if you please, sir."

"A girl, traipsing the road!" He paused and rubbed one big bare foot over the other. "Well," he said, sharply, "I can't stand here and freeze. Step in. For a minute."

She stepped in, then said faintly, "May I sit me down, sir? Me legs is givin' way." She was really crumpling up with fatigue, and Van Horn, putting out a steadying hand, guided her into the hall, where she sank down on the lowest step of the staircase.

"Well, I swan!" the landlord said again; then called: "Hey! Mother! Lookee here: a young miss."

Mrs. Van Horn, in curl papers and a wadded bed jacket, had been hanging over the banisters, listening; she came now, ponderously, down stairs. She paused on the step above the sagging figure, and looked at the shawled head, drooping against the banisters. "What's this? What's this?" she demanded.

"I don't know," said her husband; "look at her! Sopping."

Van Horn said, uneasily; "even if she is a traipser, don't turn her out in the rain."

"Mr. Van Horn," said his wife, "I don't need to be told by a man in his night shirt, how to treat a young woman -of this sort. Go on up to your bed. Put down the candle! Do you think I want to be left in the dark with her? She may try to murder me! Girl, are you hungry?"

"Yes, mum; but don't you give me a thought, mum. If I might just sit 'ere

99

"And walk off with the teaspoons, I suppose, before we are up in the morning?" said Mrs. Van Horn. "Follow me!" she commanded, and, candle in hand, strode along the hall to the kitchen, leaving her husband to climb upstairs as well as he could in the dark. Katy, her knees bending under her, picked up the bundle and followed in the wake of the waddling, kindly figure. In the kitchen, the candle flickering between them on the table, came more orders, always in a terrible voice: "Put that bundle in the sink! Do you hear

me? I don't want it dripping all over the floor! Sit down."

The girl silently did as she was bid, but she watched Mrs. Van Horn, going in and out of the pantry, with eager eyes, and when food was placed before her, fell on it, stuffing it into her mouth and straining to swallow it with the strangling hunger of fatigue. Mrs. Van Horn, looking at her, suddenly turned and went puffing upstairs; when she came back (calling over her shoulder, "No, Mr. Van Horn! It's no place for you. Stay where you are") she brought with her a fat black bottle. She poured a good two fingers of whisky into a tumbler, and held it out to the girl: "Take it." Katy took it, her teeth clicking against the glass held in both shaking hands. She ate every crumb of food, even running the blade of her knife round her plate and closing her lips on it, so that nothing should escape her.

Watching her, Mrs. Van Horn said, slowly, "A girl, traipsing the public road at this time of night! Well, I wasn't born yesterday. I know what that You can stay the rest of

means.