"Passing from family to family, and adapting yourself to their
various home arrangements?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Getting your dinner at one o'clock to-day, and at three or four
to-morrow?"

Miss Carson nodded assent.

"Taking it now, warm and well served, with the family, and on the
next occasion, cold and tasteless by yourself, after the family has
dined."

Another assenting inclination of the head.

"One day set to work in an orderly, well ventilated room, and on the
next cooped up with children in a small apartment, the air of which
is little less than poison to your weak lungs."

"These differences must always occur, Mrs. Wykoff," replied Miss
Carson, in a quiet uncomplaining voice. "How could it be otherwise?
No house-keeper is going to alter her family arrangements for the
accommodation of a sewing-girl. The seamstress must adapt herself to
them, and do it as gracefully as possible."

"Even at the risk of her life?"

"She will find it easier to decline working in families where the
order of things bears too heavily upon her, than to attempt any