“You’re Barbara Grafton, I s’pose,” she said in a brisk voice. “I’m Mrs. ’Arris, an’ I’ve come to ’elp you hout.” [Illustration: I’M MRS. ’ARRIS, AN’ I’VE COME TO ’ELP YOU HOUT] Barbara sat up quickly. “Oh!” she said. “Do you wish a position as cook here?” Mrs. Harris’s eyes rested upon her with amiable condescension. “I come to ’elp you hout,” she repeated. “I’m Mrs. Brown’s widder sister, and when she told me as ’ow you was left alone and the ’ouse agoin’ to rack and ruin—” Barbara suddenly stiffened in the hammock. “Why, she says to me, she says, ‘’Ilda, I’m awful fond of Dr. Grafton, an’ I can’t let ’im starve without proper care while ’is wife’s gone. Now you jest put on your things an’ go up there an’ ’elp hout.’ So I come,” concluded Mrs. Harris, composedly; and she sat down. The Kid drew nearer, and stared at her from under his mass of tawny hair. “You goin’ to stay here?” he inquired. “Yes, of course,” answered Mrs. Harris, with a sweeping glance at the little fellow, that took in the holes in the knees of his stockings. “Then please get out o’ that chair,” said the Kid, promptly. “It’s my black Arabian horse.” “Charles!” cried Barbara. “You take another chair, or play somewheres else,” said Mrs. Harris, calmly. “Runnin’ wild sence ’is mother left, I s’pose,” she remarked, turning to Barbara. Barbara choked back her astonished resentment at this speech, and returned to the subject at hand. “It may be that you will not suit,” she said coldly, rising. “Can you cook well, and do you understand gas-ranges?” Mrs. Harris laughed complacently, eyeing the slender girl before her with amused condescension. “I ’ave cooked for the finest families o’ Hengland,” she announced. “I’ll settle with your father about wages. Now you jest show me the kitchen, an’ then I’ll let you go, as I see this porch ain’t tidy, an’ that there child needs to be attended to, an’ probably the rest o’ the ’ouse wants cleanin’.” The Kid slunk off the porch as the words “needs to be attended to” pierced his small cranium. He thought it meant chastisement for his last speech, poor child, and saw, with joy, Barbara following this new and surprising person into the house. In Barbara’s mind a sense of resentment and defeat was conflicting with a feeling of relief at the prospect of help. She rejoiced to herself as they passed through the hall, for she had just swept it with her own hands. “Dreadful dusty mopboards,” said Mrs. Harris, nonchalantly. Barbara’s spirits sank.