"Laws--a--day, but I'm dead dog-tired," she exclaimed cordially. Miss Gordon looked still severer. Evidently Sarah Emily had returned in no prodigal-son's frame of mind. Ordinarily the mistress would have sharply rebuked the girl's manner of speech, but now she bent to her work with an air of having washed her hands finally of this stubborn case. But Sarah Emily was of the sort that could not be overawed by any amount of dignity. She was not troubled, either, with a burdensome sense of humility--no, not even though this was the third time she had "given notice," and returned uninvited. "Well," she exclaimed at length, as though Miss Gordon were arguing the case with her, "I jist had to have a recess. There ain't no one could stand the penoeuvres of that young Lizzie, an' the mud she trailed all over the kitchen jist after I'd scrubbed!" Miss Gordon showed no signs of sympathy. She felt some, nevertheless, and suppressed a sigh. Elizabeth certainly was a trial. She deigned no remark, however, and Sarah Emily continued the one-sided conversation all unabashed. "I hoofed it every fut o' the road," she remarked aggrievedly. Miss Gordon took a new thread from her ball and fitted it into her needle with majestic dignity. Sarah Emily was silent a moment, then hummed her favorite song. "_My grandmother lives on yonder little green, As fine an old lady as ever was seen, She has often cautioned me with care, Of all false young men to beware!_ "I couldn't abide that there Mrs. Oliver another five minutes. She had too stiff a backbone for me, by a whole pail o' starch." Miss Gordon's face changed. Here was news. Sarah Emily had been at service in town during her week's absence, and not only that, she had actually been in one of its most wealthy and influential families! To Miss Gordon, the town, some three miles distant, was a small Edinburgh, and she pined for even a word from someone, anyone, there who moved in its social world. She longed to hear more, but realized she could not afford to relax just yet. "Perhaps you will understand now what it means to be under proper discipline," she remarked. "Well, I wasn't kickin' about bein' under that, whatever it is. It was bein' under her thumb I couldn't abide--makin' me wear a white bonnet in the afternoons, jist as if I was an old granny, an' an apron not big enough for a baby's bib!" Miss Gordon longed to rebuke the girl sharply, but could not bear to lose the glimpse of real genteel life. "She has one girl an' one boy--an' that there boy! She'd dress him up in a new white get-up, 'bout every five minutes, an' he'd walk straight outside an' wallow in the mud right after. I thought I'd a' had to stand an' iron pants for that young heathen till the crack o' doom, an' I had just one pair too many so I had. An' I up an' told her you'd think she kep' a young centipede much less a human boy with only two legs to him. And then I up and skedaddled."