Page:Live and Let Live.djvu/97

 because I would not tell on that child—you know Lucy is like mad for a book."

"I have observed she is fond of reading."

"That's what I call a habit in a servant; but, poor thing, she's young. And when she went to sleep and left the candle burning, and waked in a fright just as I came in to bed, maybe she did not just know who did it."

"Well, Ferris, we'll see she does not burn a light after she goes to bed—so, if anything happens again, you know you must bear the blame." Ferris learned her own importance by seeing that her mistress was willing to appear duped, and Mrs. Ardley stifled the reproaches of conscience for tolerating drunkenness, and its consequent lying and injustice, by saying, "I have spoken to her — what can I do more?"

Are not the virtues and vices of domestics too often requited, not in proportion to their desert, but according to their effect on the convenience of their employers?

Mrs. Ardley was under a strong impulse, and she proceeded in that most delicate of all operations—reform. "Mary Minturn," she said, "I perceive that you are getting uneasy, like all the girls."

Mary Minturn was suffering from debility and loss of spirits, the almost certain consequence of too close a confinement to a sedentary employment. She burst into tears. "Don't be troubled, Mary; I did not mean to reproach you," resumed Mrs. Ardley; "servants are always fancying they shall like some other work better than that they are doing—it's the old story; each one is eager to lay down his particular burden, and glad enough to take it I