And yet here was this girl talking about it as composedly as if it were an everyday occurrence which she did not in the least mind. She wondered what could be the cause of the necessity for this state of things. Probably all the servants had decamped at once, it might be on account of the fear of smallpox. In that case it might be that even she was in danger of contagion. It would be well to investigate. Mrs. Grey had gone into the house and Allison sat on the step quietly looking out at the shadows on the lawn.

"You said your maid had left you, I think," said Miss Rutherford, trying to speak pleasantly. "Have all your servants gone? What was the matter? Were they afraid of the smallpox?"

"Oh, dear no!" said Allison, this time surprised out of her gravity into a genuine laugh. "There isn't any smallpox in town, only perhaps that one case you know. No, we never keep more than one servant. I did not say she had left; I said we had none now. She's not a maid in the sense you meant; she's the maid-of-all-work. She has been with mother since we were little children, but she is away on a vacation now. She always goes for a month every fall to visit her brother in Chicago, and during that month mother and I do all the work, all but the washing. She only went to Chicago day before yesterday, so we are just getting broken in, you see."

"Oh!" said Miss Rutherford slowly, trying to take in such a state of things and the possibility that anybody could accept it calmly. "And you only keep one servant? I'm sure I don't see how ever in the world you manage. Why, we keep four always, and sometimes five, and then things are never half done right. I should think you would just hate to have to do the work. Don't you?"

"Why, no," said Allison slowly. "I rather like it. Mother and I have such nice times doing it together. I love to make bread. I always do that part now; it's a little too hard for mother."

"Do you mean to say you can make bread?" The questioner leaned forward and looked curiously at the other girl, as though she had confessed to belonging to some strange tribe of wild people of whom she had heard, but whom she had never expected to look upon.

"Why, certainly!" said Allison, laughing heartily now. "I can make good bread too, I think. Wasn't that good you had for supper?"

"Yes, it was fine. I think it was the best I ever ate, but I never dreamed a girl could make it. Don't you get your hands all stuck up? I should think it would ruin them forever. I've always heard work was terrible on the hands," and she looked down at her own white ones sparkling with jewels in the moonlight as if they might have become contaminated by those so lowly nearby.

"I have not found that my hands suffered," said Allison, in a cold tone, spreading out a pair as small and white and shapely as those adorned with rings. Her guest looked at her curiously again. Sitting there on the step in that graceful attitude, with the white scarf about her head and shoulders which her mother had placed there when she went in, and the moonlight streaming all about her, Miss Rutherford suddenly saw that the other girl was beautiful too.