A knock came at the door. Daisy felt a little anxious as she thought of old Jim Hogle. He had served her turn--secured her purse for her from Markey, toward whom she bore no grudge but felt instead a mischievous desire to "tame down" into a wooer--and she did not want any meddling, old, self-appointed foster-father handicapping her movements here in town. She must let the old man, who reminded her distastefully of the farm, know, once and for all, that her plans were "none of his business". Perhaps, though, he would not be put aside so easily. With this last thought in her mind, it was a very cold and hostile face that Daisy presented, as she unlocked the door and opened it. "Oh-h! Woo-oo!" exclaimed a voice, with a burlesque of shivering. The sylph of the blond coiffure skipped in, shrinking away playfully as she closed the door. "I say--you do chill one, you know!" Daisy relaxed her face. "I thought it was that old What's-his-name," she said. "Ar, yes", the sylph had bobbed over, and was poking at her hair with a forefinger, canting and turning her head before the looking glass--trying, doubtless, to reduce her order to some semblance of Daisy's pretty disorder; "ar, yes--'e _is_ a bit of an old nuisance, 'e is. You carn't guess what 'e's up to now". "What?" Daisy's eyes widened. "Arskin' the boss to take you on 'ere, as a dinin'-room girl. The boss, 'e'll do it, too. 'Im and Jim-jam's old pals--'old-timers' they calls it, among the colownials--and the 'Ogle person 'e can have any think 'e wants for the arskin'. D'you know, I shouldn't take it, if I were you". "I'm not going to take it," said Daisy, with considerable fervor. The sylph, pulling herself away at length from the glass, came over and sat down on the side of the bed--dangling her high heels kittenishly and eyeing Daisy up and down. "Do you know what I should do, if I were in your boots?" she said. Daisy's eyes came up interrogatively. "I should go into service," pursued the sylph; "like as not, you'll 'ave a charnce at some rich young man, that way, sooner or later. 'Ousemaids have done that, by good management, even owver in the Old Country. Out 'ere, it's a--a caution, 'ow often it happens". "I don't want to marry anybody, rich or poor, just now", said Daisy; "but how do you get into 'service', and what is it? What do you have to do?" "Oh, down't you know what service is?" her companion simulated surprise broadly; then, looking a little aside, as though addressing a third party, the sylph murmured: "Ow, the denseniss of the mahsses! It's a cortion, it is!" After this soliloquy, she faced Daisy again, looking the girl up and down as through the mistress' lorgnette. "W'y", she said, "domestic service, I mean--service: I carn't use any other word--in some big 'ouse, with your two evenin's off a week, if you're a good bargainer, an' a charnce to have your comp'ny in the kitchin, when the Missis isn't abaout--she carn't always be on 'and, can she?"