A few moments later a gentle knock was heard at the door, and--“Mamma says she would like to have screens put into her windows, Mrs. Lane,” said a crisp-looking young girl who put her head into the door, “and the water won’t run upstairs, and we need more--why, what in the world is the matter?” she finished abruptly, for poor Mrs. Lane had put down her pitcher, looking as if this was the last straw. “Everything is the matter,” the tired woman answered, and motioned the girl into the hall to explain that all her troubles seemed to have culminated that morning and that the ministers were to be there for dinner. “Can’t you get any one to help you?” the girl asked, looking inquiringly through the door at Mary. “No, she’s too busy studying; I wouldn’t have her stop preparing for her Latin examination for anything; she is going to have a higher education, you know,” she added, with a touch of pride. The youthful summer boarder looked down at the tired little woman with a bright smile. “Oh, Mrs. Lane, I’m coming right in to help you, myself,” she said; “I just love to do things in the kitchen, honestly I do,” commencing to take off her rings and rolling up her sleeves, as she saw Mrs. Lane had not fully grasped what she had said. “No, you must not stay in this hot place,” the woman said, noticing the stiff collar and freshly starched duck skirt; “and, besides,” she continued, to herself, as she remembered how some of her boarders, last summer, had tried to have a candy-pull and had set the house on fire, “I can’t be bothered now showing her. I know how these city girls work.” But by this time the “city girl,” unconscious of Mrs. Lane’s thoughts, had one of the latter’s big kitchen aprons tied around her waist and was waving a wooden spoon by way of punctuating her orders. “Now, Mrs. Lane, I’m the new hired girl, Blanche is my name, and although I have no recommendation from my last place to give you, I assure you I am honest and willing. You don’t know how I just love to get a chance to fuss around a kitchen; it is such a change from the grind of--” Here the potatoes boiled over and she flew to take off the lid. The morning wore away much more peacefully for Mrs. Lane than it had begun. Many steps were saved her by the “new girl’s” watchfulness, and there were even several bursts of merry laughter from the buttery, which dispelled more clouds than the real assistance did. “I may not be so skilled in making bread and doing the useful things,” Blanche apologized, “for I have taken only the ‘classical course’ in cookery. Nettie and I spent last summer down at Aunt Cornelia’s while the rest of the family were in Europe, and she told us we could do whatever we pleased, and what do you suppose we chose? I chose puttering around the kitchen, and Nettie took to hoeing the weeds out of the vegetable garden. And it was such fun!”