respectfully sealed envelope on the kitchen shelf. I inquired punctiliously after the state of her family's health, too, on those rare occasions when I saw her, but refrained from giving her the advice which is usual in these connections, and which acts as a safety valve for the employer and is acceptable to the employed in proportion to the number of extra dimes accompanying it.
Then one day there came up a request from Mrs. Montrose that I would spare a few minutes for an interview. I was alarmed at first. There are always such incalculable elements in the situations below stairs. Our whole theory of domestic relations is built upon a wrong principle, and, explosions sooner or later, major or minor, are natural consequence. But it was not a dismissal of us as a "place" that Mrs. Montrose had come to give me, nor to ask for a "raise" nor yet to lodge complaint as to the kind of wringer we used, but to solicit my influence and interest on Mr. Montrose's behalf. I was requested to speak a word to the clergyman of a suburban church, whom I knew slightly, in favor of his appointment as organist, during the illness of the regular incumbent. I
