I have known many foreign servants. Even the best of them was not so good as a competent negro would have been in the same place. I am a Southerner born and bred among negroes. Besides, I am descended from a long line of slave-owning ancestors. I do not believe that Abraham Lincoln himself was a more loyal American than the present-day descendants of the people he fought to free. Yet in spite of their excellent qualities, their loyalty, we turn them down. Just let an American family get a little money, and the first thing they do in the way of display is to secure as many “help” as their pocketbook will permit. Being foreigners, all the servants at Sutton House were, of course, “help.” Even the French maid spoke of herself as “Madame’s porsonal help,” and even the fact that she received sixty dollars a month in wages, her laundry, a room to herself, and all the clothes that her mistress did not care to wear the second time did not prevent her from disloyalty. A negro girl would have given better service than this woman and never have permitted her mistress to be criticised in her presence. Under my direction there were five chambermaids, a scrubwoman, and a man for cleaning. The man was a Swede and the maids all Irish. My wages were forty dollars a month with laundry and a room to myself. Because I chanced to take the fancy of the housekeeper I took all my meals with her instead of with the other servants. Had it been otherwise I would have heard more back-stairs gossip than I did. Certainly I heard enough to make me know that, excepting the housekeeper, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Sutton had a friend among their “help.” Unlike the horde of foreigners who have usurped their rightful places, negro servants are loyal to their employers. A negro, as a rule, has too much self-esteem to belittle the person from whom he takes wages. Sutton House was crowded with guests every week-end, but from Monday noon to Friday afternoon Mrs. Sutton was generally alone with her little son and his tutor. Mr. Sutton usually returned to the city with the first of his guests to leave Monday morning, and seldom made his appearance before Saturday afternoon. He stood well in his profession, was a hard worker, and might have been devoted to his home had the distance between his office and Sutton House admitted of his spending his nights there. Mrs. Sutton, so I learned from the housekeeper, was an only child of wealthy parents—the darling of her old father, who had insisted on humoring every whim. It being her whim to come to Sutton House before her husband’s business permitted him to leave town, the family had moved out.