Breakfast over, and Mr. Gartney gone to his counting room, the parlor girl made her appearance with her mop and tub of hot water, to wash up the silver and china. "Give me that," said Aunt Henderson, taking a large towel from the girl's arm as she set down her tub upon the sideboard. "You go and find something else to do." Wherever she might be--to be sure, her round of visiting was not a large one--Aunt Henderson never let anyone else wash up breakfast cups. This quiet arming of herself, with mop and towel, stirred up everybody else to duty. Her niece-in-law laughed, withdrew her feet from the comfortable fender, and departed to the kitchen to give her household orders for the day. Faith removed cups, glasses, forks, and spoons from the table to the sideboard, while the maid, returning with a tray, carried off to the lower regions the larger dishes. "I haven't told you yet, Elizabeth, what I came to town for," said Aunt Faith, when Mrs. Gartney came back into the breakfast room. "I'm going to hunt up a girl." "A girl, aunt! Why, what has become of Prudence?" "Mrs. Pelatiah Trowe. That's what's become of her. More fool she." "But why in the world do you come to the city for a servant? It's the worst possible place. Nineteen out of twenty are utterly good for nothing." "I'm going to look out for the twentieth." "But aren't there girls enough in Kinnicutt who would be glad to step in Prue's place?" "Of course there are. But they're all well enough off where they are. When I have a chance to give away, I want to give it to somebody that needs it." "I'm afraid you'll hardly find any efficient girl who will appreciate the chance of going twenty miles into the country." "I don't want an efficient girl. I'm efficient myself, and that's enough." "Going to _train_ another, at your time of life, aunt?" asked Mrs. Gartney, in surprise. "I suppose I must either train a girl, or let her train me; and, at my time of life, I don't feel to stand in need of that." "How shall I go to work to inquire?" resumed Aunt Henderson, after a pause. "Well, there are the Homes, and the Offices, and the Ministers at Large. At a Home, they would probably recommend you somebody they've made up their minds to put out to service, and she might or might not be such as would suit you. Then at the Offices, you'll see all sorts, and mostly poor ones." "I'll try an Office, first," interrupted Miss Henderson. "I _want_ to see all sorts. Faith, you'll go with me, by and by, won't you, and help me find the way?" Faith, seated at a little writing table at the farther end of the room, busied in copying into her album, in a clear, neat, but rather stiff schoolgirl's hand, the oracle of the night before, did not at once notice that she was addressed. "Faith, child! don't you hear?" "Oh, yes, aunt. What is it?" "I want you to go to a what-d'ye-call-it office with me, to-day." "An intelligence office," explained her mother. "Aunt Faith wants to find a girl."