entertain the girl with enthusiastic accounts of the domestics of
earlier and better days.

"My mother had a girl," she said, "a girl named Norah O'Connor. I
remember her very well. She swept, she cleaned, she did the entire
washing for a family of eight, and she did all the cooking. And such
cookies, and pies, and gingerbread as she made! All for sixteen
dollars a month. We regarded Norah as a member of the family, and,
even on her holidays she would take three or four of us, and walk
with us to my father's grave; that was all she wanted to do. You
don't see her like in these days, dear old Norah!"

Justine listened respectfully, silently. Once, when her mistress was
enlarging upon the advantages of slavery, the girl commented mildly:

"Doesn't it seem a pity that the women of the United States didn't
attempt at least to train all those Southern colored people for
house servants? It seems to be their natural element. They love to
live in white families, and they have no caste pride. It would seem
to be such a waste of good material, letting them worry along
without much guidance all these years. It almost seems as if the
Union owed it to them."

"Dear me, I wish somebody would! I, for one, would love to have dear
old mammies around me again," Mrs. Salisbury said, with fervor.
"They know their place," she added neatly.

"The men could be butlers and gardeners and coachmen," pursued
Justine.