I felt completely discouraged.

How _was_ I to get along?
I had been trying for weeks, in vain, to get a good seamstress; and yet had no prospect of obtaining one.

I was going to lose my cook, and, in all probability, my chambermaid.

What would I do?
No light broke in through the cloudy veil that overhung my mind.

The door opened, and Agnes, who had come up to my room, said-- "Mrs.Partridge is done." I took out my purse, and had selected therefrom the change necessary to pay the washerwoman, when a thought of her caused me to say-- "Tell Mrs.Partridge to come up and see me." My thoughts and feelings were changing.