The Lady's Maid's Bell

I

IT was the autumn after I had the typhoid. I'd been three months in
hospital, and when I came out I looked so weak and tottery that the
two or three ladies I applied to were afraid to engage me. Most of
my money was gone, and after I'd boarded for two months, hanging
about the employment-agencies, and answering any advertisement that
looked any way respectable, I pretty nearly lost heart, for fretting
hadn't made me fatter, and I didn't see why my luck should ever
turn. It did though--or I thought so at the time. A Mrs. Railton, a
friend of the lady that first brought me out to the States, met me
one day and stopped to speak to me: she was one that had always a
friendly way with her. She asked me what ailed me to look so white,
and when I told her, "Why, Hartley," says she, "I believe I've got
the very place for you. Come in to-morrow and we'll talk about it."

The next day, when I called, she told me the lady she'd in mind was
a niece of hers, a Mrs. Brympton, a youngish lady, but something of
an invalid, who lived all the year round at her country-place on the
Hudson, owing to not being able to stand the fatigue of town life.

"Now, Hartley," Mrs. Railton said, in that cheery way that always
made me feel things must be going to take a turn for the
better--"now understand me; it's not a cheerful place i'm sending
you to. The house is big and gloomy; my niece is nervous, vaporish;
her husband--well, he's generally away; and the two children are
dead. A year ago, I would as soon have thought of shutting a rosy
active girl like you into a vault; but you're not particularly brisk
yourself just now, are you? and a quiet place, with country air and
wholesome food and early hours, ought to be the very thing for you.
Don't mistake me," she added, for I suppose I looked a trifle
downcast; "you may find it dull, but you won't be unhappy. My niece
is an angel. Her former maid, who died last spring, had been with
her twenty years and worshipped the ground she walked on. She's a
kind mistress to all, and where the mistress is kind, as you know,
the servants are generally good-humored, so you'll probably get on
well enough with the rest of the household. And you're the very
woman I want for my niece: quiet, well-mannered, and educated above
your station. You read aloud well, I think? That's a good thing; my
niece likes to be read to. She wants a maid that can be something of
a companion: her last was, and I can't say how she misses her. It's
a lonely life...Well, have you decided?"

"Why, ma'am," I said, "I'm not afraid of solitude."

"Well, then, go; my niece will take you on my recommendation. I'll
telegraph her at