Phillis has been very contrary lately. She is completely out of humour; does everything badly, and resents the least word of reproof. Instead of her waiting at table, it is _I_ who _wait_, while she does not answer the bell. If coals are wanted, it is so long before she brings them, that the fire is nearly out; then she comes in, throws on half a scuttle-full, which, of course, extinguishes it completely; and, to finish all, upsets the remainder on the carpet. Then she goes off in a towering rage, comes back with dust-pan and brush, repairs the damage to the carpet in a very slovenly way, and then fetches an armful of chips and paper, which make a great blaze for a few minutes, and soon burn completely out. Is it not singular that persons will sometimes appear to forget how to do a thing that they have done, and done properly, for years? This morning, though I was suffering from neuralgia, and a drizzling rain was falling, she scoured my bed-room all over, and set the windows wide open, whereby everything in the room is as damp and limp as possible. On my telling her that I would rather have had the cleaning deferred till a drier day, especially when I was suffering from a cold, she replied that Friday was the day for doing it, and she would do it on a Friday, or not at all. On my rejoining—“Nay, is that a question for mistress or maid to settle?” she replied, she never knew such a mistress; nothing she could do gave satisfaction; and, as she saw it was no use trying to please me, she hoped I should suit myself with another servant by that day month; and then went off, banging the door after her, yet leaving it ajar. I felt resentment. I knew I had been a kind mistress to her; had studied her comforts, allowed her many indulgences, and overlooked many faults; and this was the way I was repaid! I felt it very hard. True, I had given her much trouble during my long and painful illness; but she had been engaged on purpose to assist in nursing me through it, and undertake the whole general work of the little house; had said, again and again, the work was nothing, and, in fact, was always sitting down to needle-work at five o’clock in the afternoon. I was aggrieved: I thought, if she would go, she might: if there were no attachment on one side, why need there be any on the other? And as to getting another servant, why I _could_ but have a tiresome one, and Phillis was that already. In writing all this down I perceive some bad logic, but I felt very forlorn and depressed. When she came in to lay the cloth for dinner, she said not a word, nor did I; but her face declared war. The dinner could hardly have been worse cooked.