The Lady Sleuths MEGAPACK TM(871)

                Sarah Judd considered this soberly; then nodded her head.

                “I’ve walked all the way from Millbank,” she said with another sigh.

                “Then you’ve had nothing to eat!” exclaimed Mary Louise, with ready sympathy. “May I get her something, Aunt Hannah?”

                “Of course, my dear.”

                Both Mr. and Mrs. Conant felt rather embarrassed.

                “I regret,” said the latter, “that we do not need a maid at present. We do our own housework, you see.”

                “I have left a good place in Albany to come here,” said Sarah, plaintively.



                             “You should have written to Mrs. Morrison,” declared the lawyer, “asking if she still required your services. Many unforeseen things may happen during a period of ten months.”

                “Mrs. Morrison, she have paid me a month in advance,” asserted the girl, in justification. “And she paid me my expenses to come here, too. She said I must not fail her; I should come to the Lodge on the tenth of July and do the work at the Lodge. She did not say she would be here. She did not say you would be here. She told me to come and work, and she paid me a month in advance, so I could give the money to my sister, who needed it then. And I must do as Mrs. Morrison says. I am paid to work at the Lodge and so I must work at the Lodge. I cannot help that, can I?”

                The lawyer was a man of experience, but this queer complication astonished him. He exchanged a questioning glance with his wife.

                “In any event,” said Mrs. Conant, “the girl must stay here to-night, for it would be cruel to ask her to find her way down the mountain in the dark. We will put her in the maid’s room, Peter, and to-morrow we can decide what to do with her.”

                “Very well,” agreed Mr. Conant and retreated to the den to have his smoke.

                Mary Louise arranged some food on the kitchen table for Sarah Judd and after the girl had eaten, Mrs. Conant took her to the maid’s room, which was a very pleasant and well furnished apartment quite in keeping with all the comfortable appointments at Hillcrest Lodge, although it was built behind the kitchen and formed a little wing of its own.

                Sarah Judd accepted these favors with meek resignation. Since her one long speech of explanation she had maintained silence. Leaving her in her room, the family congregated in the den, where Mr. Conant was telling Irene about the queer arrival and the unfortunate misunderstanding that had occasioned it.

                “The girl is not to blame,” said Mary Louise. “She seems an honest little thing, resolved to do her duty. It is all Mrs. Morrison’s fault.”



                             “Doesn’t look like a very competent servant, either,” observed Mr. Conant, comfortably puffing his pipe.

                “You can’t tell that from appearances, Peter,” replied Mrs. Conant. “She can at least wash dishes and sweep and do the drudgery. Why not keep her?”

                “Oh, my dear!”

                “Mrs. Morrison has paid her a month’s wages, and Molly Morrison wouldn’t have done that had not the girl been competent. It won’t cost us anything to keep her—except her food—and it seems a shame to cast her adrift just because the Morrisons forgot to notify her they had changed their plans.”