"Parsons," she said clearly. "Maud Emily, age twenty-six. Profession, House-parlourmaid. Religion, Anabaptist (I'm sure she's an Anabaptist, by the cut of her Sunday hat). Honest. Steady. Clean in her work and person. Willing and obliging. Can clean plate... Forgets everything. Breaks the rest. Snores while waiting. Has feelings, and an invalid mamma, who, I feel it in my bones, will be tuk worse regularly on the afternoons of dinner parties. In every emergency, can be backed to do the worst possible thing... There! it's a problem for a society paper! ... _What should Mrs Beverley do_?" "Mrs Beverley should exercise patience and self-control. She should speak gently to the poor girl, who no doubt is doing her best. First Prize awarded for this solution, a copy of Mrs Tupper's famous work, _The Blue Boy Darling_." Grizel contemplated him frowningly. "Something will have to be done about your jokes! You have no sense of fitness. It drives me daft when a person jokes when I am worried. I'll laugh myself in a fortnight's time; with grace I'll laugh to-morrow, but I won't laugh to-day for all the jokes on earth, and I hate anyone who tries to make me do it. I'm not in the mood for jokes, and you ought to know it without being told." "Sorry, Madam, but there seems something wrong with your theory. You want to be cheered when you are already cheered, and not to be cheered when you are in need of cheering." "Silly jokes," Grizel said firmly, "do not cheer. They can be endured in periods of health. In periods of affliction they are the last straw which breaks the woman's back." Martin chewed his bacon in dignified silence, while his wife cocked a speculative eye at him to see if she had gone too far. Presently the two pairs of eyes met, and Grizel, made an extraordinary play with her eyebrows which gave the effect of contrition, and defiance, and injured innocence, and apologetic love, and half a dozen appealing sentiments rolled into one, whereat Martin shrugged, and cried, "You women!" and racked his brain to think what consolation to offer next. "Cheer up, darling, we'll have a holiday next month. I've had a note from the agent to say we can have the house, and the Squire is keen to join. You'll enjoy the sea and unlimited powwows with Lady Cassandra, and, if you speak her fair, perhaps she'll take over the housekeeping, and set you free." The mutual renting of a house near a seaside golf course had been in discussion for some time between the two households, but Grizel betrayed only a mitigated satisfaction in her husband's proposal.