The Brinleys had been through the domestic mill in its every phase. They had had cooks, and cooks, and cooks, and maids, and maids, and maids, plus other maids; they had been face to face with arson and murder; Mrs. Brinley had parted a laundress armed with a flat-iron from a belligerent cook armed with an ice-pick, and twice the ministers of the law had carried certain irate women bodily forth with the direst of threats lest they should return later and remove the Brinley family from the list of the living. All of which contributed to Mrs. Brinley's unhappiness and rather increased than diminished her natural timidity. Brinley, on the other hand, professed to know no fear, but according to his theory that ways and means were his care, and that the domestic affairs of his household were his wife's, and beyond his jurisdiction, held himself aloof and said never a word to the recalcitrant servant, confining what upbraiding he did exclusively to Mrs. Brinley. "Why don't you scold Bridget?" cried Mrs. Brinley one morning, after Brinley had made a few remarks to his wife which were not to her taste, inasmuch as she felt that she had done nothing to deserve them. "I didn't burn the steak." "That is very true, my dear," said Brinley, "but you are responsible for the cook who did. It would never do for me to interfere. I have troubles enough with my office-boys. This is your bailiwick, not mine, and until I ask you to scold my clerks you mustn't ask me to scold your servants." With this sage remark the valiant Brinley at once took his departure. Time passed, and it so happened one autumn that the once happy household found itself in the throes of a particularly aggravated case of cook. She was a sixteen-dollar cook, and had been recommended as being "splendid." In just what respect she showed her splendor, save in her regal lack of manners and the marvellous coloring of her costumes on her Sundays out, was never perceptible, but one thing that was wholly clear at the end of a three-weeks' service was her independence of manner.