CHAPTER VI.

AUNT HENDERSON'S GIRL HUNT.

"Black spirits and white, Red spirits and gray; Mingle, mingle, mingle, You that mingle may."

MACBETH.

It was a small, close, dark room--Mrs. Griggs's Intelligence Office--a little counter and show case dividing off its farther end, making a sanctum for Mrs. Griggs, who sat here in rheumatic ponderosity, dependent for whatever involved locomotion on the rather alarming alacrity of an impish-looking granddaughter who is elbowing her way through the throng of applicants for places and servants. She paid no heed to the astonishment of a severe-looking, elderly lady, who, by her impetuous onset, has been rudely thrust back into the very arms of a fat, unsavory cook with whom she had a minute before been quite unwillingly set to confer by the high priestess of the place.

Aunt Henderson grasped Faith's hand as if she felt she had brought her into a danger, and held her close to her side while she paused a moment to observe, with the strange fascination of repulsion, the manifestation of a phase of human life and the working of a vocation so utterly and astoundingly novel to herself.

"Well, Melindy," said Mrs. Griggs, salutatorily.

"Well, grandma," answered the girl, with a pert air of show off and consequence, "I found the place, and I found the lady. Ain't I been quick?"

"Yes. What did she say?"

"Said the girl left last Sat.u.r.day. Ain't had anybody sence. Wants you to send her a first-rate one, right off. Has Care'_line_ been here after me?"

"No. Did you get the money?"

"She never said a word about it. Guess she forgot the month was out."

"Didn't you ask her?"

"Me? No. I did the arrant, and stood and looked at her--jest as pious--! And when she didn't say nothin', I come away."

"Winny M'Goverin," said Mrs. Griggs, "that place'll suit you. Leastways, it must, for another month. You'd better go right round there."

"Where is it?" asked the fat cook, indifferently.

"Up in Mount Pleasant Street, Number 53. First-cla.s.s place, and plenty of privileges. Margaret McKay," she continued, to another, "you're too hard to please. Here's one more place"--handing her a card with address--"and if you don't take that, I won't do nothing more for you, if you _air_ Scotch and a Protestant! Mary McGinnis, it's no use your talking to that lady from the country. She can't spare you to come down but twice or so a year."

"Lord!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mary McGinnis, "I wouldn't live a whole year with no lady that ever was, let alone the country!"

"Come out, Faith!" said Miss Henderson, in a deep, ineffable tone of disgust.

"If _that's_ a genteel West End Intelligence Office," cried Aunt Faith, as she touched the sidewalk, "let's go downtown and try some of the common ones."

A large hall--where the candidates were ranged on settees under order and restraint, and the superintendent, or directress, occupied a desk placed upon a platform near the entrance--was the next scene whereon Miss Henderson and Faith Gartney entered. Things looked clean and respectable. System obtained here. Aunt Faith felt encouraged. But she made no haste to utter her business. Tall, self-possessed, and dignified, she stood a few paces inside the door, and looked down the apartment, surveying coolly the faces there, and a.n.a.lyzing, by a shrewd mental process, their indications.

Her niece had stopped a moment on the landing outside to fasten her boot lace.

Miss Henderson did not wear hoops. Also, the streets being sloppy, she had tucked up her plain, gray merino dress over a quilted black alpaca petticoat. Her boots were splashed, and her black silk bonnet was covered with a large gray barege veil, tied down over it to protect it from the dripping roofs. Judging merely by exterior, one would hardly take her at a glance, indeed, for a "fust-cla.s.s" lady.

The directress--a busy woman, with only half a glance to spare for anyone--moved toward her.

"Take a seat, if you please. What kind of a place do you want?"

Aunt Faith turned full face upon her, with a look that was prepared to be overwhelming.

"I'm looking for a place, ma'am, where I can find a respectable girl."

Her firm, emphatic utterance was heard to the farthest end of the hall.

The girls t.i.ttered.

Faith Gartney came in at this moment, and walked up quietly to Miss Henderson's side. There was visibly a new impression made, and the t.i.ttering ceased.

"I beg pardon, ma'am. I see. But we have so many in, and I didn't fairly look. General housework?"

"Yes; general and particular--both. Whatever I set her to do."

The directress turned toward the throng of faces whose fire of eyes was now all concentrated on the unflinching countenance of Miss Henderson.

"Ellen Mahoney!"

A stout, well-looking damsel, with an expression that seemed to say she answered to her name, but was nevertheless persuaded of the utter uselessness of the movement, half rose from her seat.

"You needn't call up that girl," said Aunt Faith, decidedly; "I don't want her."

Ellen Mahoney had giggled among the loudest.

"She knows what she _does_ want!" whispered a decent-appearing young woman to a girl at her side with an eager face looking out from a friz of short curly hair, "and that's more than half of 'em do."

"Country, did you say, ma'am? or city?" asked the directress once more of Miss Henderson.

"I didn't say. It's country, though--twenty miles out."

"What wages?"

"I'll find the girl first, and settle that afterwards."

"Anybody to do general housework in the country, twenty miles out?"

The prevailing expression of the a.s.semblage changed. There was a settling down into seats, and a resumption of knitting and needlework.

One pair of eyes, however, looked on, even more eagerly than before. One young girl--she with the short curly hair who hadn't seen the country for six years and more--caught her breath, convulsively, at the word.

"I wish I dar'st! I've a great mind!" whispered she to her tidy companion.

While she hesitated, a slatternly young woman, a few seats farther forward, moved, with a "don't care" sort of look, to answer the summons.

"Oh, dear!" sighed the first. "I'd ought to a done it!"