Ellen Windsor
Stacey in domestic service
Chapter One
The home was typical New England. Stately, white, and set elegantly upon a rise in.the Vermont countryside. Stacy saw the home the minute she left the Greyhound in the town square, for it re- posed beyond the village streets. The girl's first thought concerned how utterly gorgeous the maple woods must be in fall.
It was, after all, Stacy's third position since high school. All had been served with excellence and
– efficiency,' earning her the normal letters of refer- ral. Indeed, each position was a step upwards for
Stacy, bringing the commensurate increase in sal- ary. How glad she was that she had favored domes- tic service in high school! Her teacher, Miss
Cummins, had been such an excellent instructor!
Goodness knows, the domestic market was becom- ing increasingly crowded and competitive these days. A girl had to be very pretty and very good to land any sort of reasonable position. Thus the girl swang happily up the narrow street, her light case an easy burden in her hand. How delightful to be seventeen on this perfect summer day!
The click of Stacy's heels made a staccato upon the winding walk as she approached the edifice, for the paving was of pure Vermont marble. She liked
the sound her heels made. It was so mature… and exciting. Wasn't it wonderful that girls once again wore skirts and heels, she mused. Gracious, those photos of her mother back in the seventies! Girls wore those.awful jeans and such cloddy, lumpy heels! And that terrible rock music. It was nice to be a girl again in a more subtle and calmer time.
The bell was answered by a mid-thirties woman who was neither attractive nor unattractive. Her attire attested that she would probably be the housekeeper under whom Stacy would serve. Her face was pleasant, however, a change from that frumpish Mrs. Donaldson in Albany, to say the least. Stacy was shown in to the sitting room, a magnificent place of thick carpet and stone fire- place.
"I am Miss Stone," said the woman after they had been seated, "but we use first names here at