Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/114

104 Bridget. It's not a rule I goes by, ma'am. I wants two afternoons a week, and every evenin' besides, and I'm used to have my friends come whenever I like.

Mrs. Mervin. I see you wouldn't suit me at all, so you had better not remain here any longer. I don't intend to pay a girl wages, and give her half her time besides.

Bridget. And shure yer no lady, ma'am; and I wouldn't set fut in yer house if ye'd give me five dollars a week, bad luck to ye.

Mrs. Mervin. Not a very promising specimen to begin with, surely.

Emma. I should think not, indeed. The idea of her asking four dollars a week, and wanting, as you said, nearly half her time! (Bell rings.) There's another. I shall find full employment in tending the door-bell, at this rate.

Enter.

Norah. Are you the lady, ma'am, the paper said wanted a girl?

Mrs. Mervin. Yes, I advertised for one yesterday. Can you do general housework ?

Norah. Faith I can, ma'am; it's a gineral's housework I've been doing, and I might have staid in the place foriver, only that herself was that fussy that niver a soul could plaze her.

Mrs. Mervin. Can you make good bread?

Norah. Good bread is it ye say? And indade I can make that same. I makes it with imtens, ma'am; and if it sours a bit, I puts a handful of salerathus into it, and it comes out of the oven as swate as a nut, and a fine color on it besides.

Emma. Dear me! I should think it might have a fine color with a handful of saleratus in it!

Mrs. Mervin. At what other place have you lived besides the one you mentioned ?

Norah. Nowheres at all, ma'am; that's the first place I wint when I came from the ould counthry.

Mrs. Mervin. How long did you live there, and what part of the work did you do ?

Norah. Well, ma'am, I lived there three weeks, 'liven days, and a fortnight—barrin' the two days that I staid out to take care of me cousin Mike; and I did the fine work, mostly, ma'am,—scrubbing, sifting ashes, and "the likes of that. Do ye think ye would like to hire me, ma'am?