Page:Pain--Eliza.djvu/51

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MISS SAKERS

ON Saturdays I always get back from the office early. This particular Saturday afternoon I looked at our chimneys as I came down the street. I thought it very queer, but, to make certain, as soon as I got into the house I opened the drawing-room door. It was just as I thought. I called up-stairs to Eliza, rather sharply.

She came down and said, "Well, what's the matter?"

I said, calmly, "The matter? Jane has apparently gone mad, that's all." (Jane is the name of our servant.)

Eliza said that she did not think so, and asked me what the girl had done.

I must say it made me feel rather sarcastic—it would have made any man feel sarcastic. I said, "Oh, nothing. Merely lit the fire in the drawing-room; and not only lit it, but

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