Faith Gartneys Girlhood | Page 5

had a downright and rather extreme fashion of putting
things; nevertheless, in her heart she was not unkindly.
So when Faithie, with her fair, fresh face--a little apprehensive trouble
in it for her tardiness--came in, there was a grim bending of the old

lady's brows; but, below, a half-belying twinkle in the eye, that, long as
it had looked out sharply and keenly on the things and people of this
mixed-up world, found yet a pleasure in anything so young and bright.
"Why, auntie! How do you do?" cried Faith, cunning culprit that she
was, taking the "bull by the horns," and holding out her hand. "I wish
you a Happy New Year! Good morning, father, and mother! A Happy
New Year! I'm sorry I'm so late."
"Wish you a great many," responded the great-aunt, in stereotyped
phrase. "It seems to me, though, you've lost the beginning of this one."
"Oh, no!" replied Faithie, gayly. "I had that at the party. We danced the
New Year in."
"Humph!" said Aunt Henderson.
Breakfast over, and Mr. Gartney gone to his counting room, the parlor
girl made her appearance with her mop and tub of hot water, to wash up
the silver and china.
"Give me that," said Aunt Henderson, taking a large towel from the
girl's arm as she set down her tub upon the sideboard. "You go and find
something else to do."
Wherever she might be--to be sure, her round of visiting was not a
large one--Aunt Henderson never let anyone else wash up breakfast
cups.
This quiet arming of herself, with mop and towel, stirred up everybody
else to duty. Her niece-in-law laughed, withdrew her feet from the
comfortable fender, and departed to the kitchen to give her household
orders for the day. Faith removed cups, glasses, forks, and spoons from
the table to the sideboard, while the maid, returning with a tray, carried
off to the lower regions the larger dishes.
"I haven't told you yet, Elizabeth, what I came to town for," said Aunt
Faith, when Mrs. Gartney came back into the breakfast room. "I'm

going to hunt up a girl."
"A girl, aunt! Why, what has become of Prudence?"
"Mrs. Pelatiah Trowe. That's what's become of her. More fool she."
"But why in the world do you come to the city for a servant? It's the
worst possible place. Nineteen out of twenty are utterly good for
nothing."
"I'm going to look out for the twentieth."
"But aren't there girls enough in Kinnicutt who would be glad to step in
Prue's place?"
"Of course there are. But they're all well enough off where they are.
When I have a chance to give away, I want to give it to somebody that
needs it."
"I'm afraid you'll hardly find any efficient girl who will appreciate the
chance of going twenty miles into the country."
"I don't want an efficient girl. I'm efficient myself, and that's enough."
"Going to train another, at your time of life, aunt?" asked Mrs. Gartney,
in surprise.
"I suppose I must either train a girl, or let her train me; and, at my time
of life, I don't feel to stand in need of that."
"How shall I go to work to inquire?" resumed Aunt Henderson, after a
pause.
"Well, there are the Homes, and the Offices, and the Ministers at Large.
At a Home, they would probably recommend you somebody they've
made up their minds to put out to service, and she might or might not
be such as would suit you. Then at the Offices, you'll see all sorts, and
mostly poor ones."

"I'll try an Office, first," interrupted Miss Henderson. "I want to see all
sorts. Faith, you'll go with me, by and by, won't you, and help me find
the way?"
Faith, seated at a little writing table at the farther end of the room,
busied in copying into her album, in a clear, neat, but rather stiff
schoolgirl's hand, the oracle of the night before, did not at once notice
that she was addressed.
"Faith, child! don't you hear?"
"Oh, yes, aunt. What is it?"
"I want you to go to a what-d'ye-call-it office with me, to-day."
"An intelligence office," explained her mother. "Aunt Faith wants to
find a girl."
"'Lucus a non lucendo,'" quoted Faith, rather wittily, from her little
stock of Latin. "Stupidity offices, I should call them, from the
specimens they send out."
"Hold your tongue, chit! Don't talk Latin to me!" growled Aunt
Henderson.
"What are you writing?" she asked, shortly after, when Mrs. Gartney
had again left her and Faith to each other. "Letters, or Latin?"
Faith colored, and laughed.
"Only a fortune that was told me last night," she replied.
"Oh! 'A little husband,' I suppose, 'no bigger than my thumb; put him in