being so kind to everybody—not only do they treat us as if we belonged to them, but there is not one, even down to Gracie, that is not teaching some poor ignorant creature something. Did you ever see anything prettier than Gracie teaching English to those little German children, that they have saved from destruction, as it were? If every family were like this, there would be an end to poverty and misery."
"That's the Millennium, child! One swallow don't make a summer."
But we are anticipating. Violet's co-operation was essential to the execution of Mrs. Hyde's plan for the general good. She, like all English servants, had been trained to one department of labour; she had the suspicion common to foreign servants (does it arise from experience?) that her employer would impose on her, and she was anxious to obtain the highest wages, being apprehensive, from the state of her health, that she should soon be cut off from all labour. But, after a long conversation with Mrs. Hyde, she was convinced that that lady had no sinister motives—that she sacrificed present convenience to the future advantage of both employers and employed, and she gratefully accepted the opportunity of trying the effect upon her health of a removal from the heat and steam of the kitchen.
Mrs. Hyde did not hire her domestics for a month or a season, and therefore she could make a present sacrifice for a prospective good. Neither did she expect to retain them always. She knew that, in this country, where avenues for progress are open on every side, there must be changes, and one of her objects was to qualify those she em-
