one maid. There's no room for a second maid, no porch and no back
yard. Well, the baby comes,--one loses, before and after the event,
just about six months of everything, and of course the expense is
frightful, but no matter!--the baby comes. We take a house. That means
three indoor maids, George's chauffeur, a man for lawn and furnace-
that's five--"

"Doubling expenses," said Mrs. Carr-Boldt, thoughtfully.

"Doubling--! Trebling, or more. But that's not all. Baby must be out
from eleven to three every day. So you've got to go sit by the
carriage in the park while nurse goes home for her lunch. Or, if
you're out for luncheon, or giving a luncheon, she brings baby home,
bumps the carriage into the basement, carries the baby upstairs, eats
her lunch in snatches--the maids don't like it, and I don't blame
them! I know how it was with Mabel; she had to give up that wonderful
old apartment of theirs on Gramercy Park. Sid had his studio on the
top floor, and she had such a lovely flat on the next floor, but there
was no lift, and no laundry, and the kitchen was small--a baby takes
so much fussing! And then she lost that splendid cook of hers,
Germaine. She wouldn't stand it. Up to that time she'd been cooking
and waiting, too, but the baby ended that. Mabel took a house, and Sid
paid studio rent beside, and they had two maids, and then three
maids,--and what with their fighting, and their days off, and
eternally changing, Mabel was a wreck. I've seen her trying to play a
bridge hand with Dorothy bobbing about on her arm--poor girl! Finally
they went to a hotel, and of course the child got older, and was less
trouble. But to this day Mabel doesn't dare leave her alone for one
second. And when they go out to dinner, and leave her alone in the
hotel, of course the child cries--!"