"Have you done any embroidery?"

"I understand it a little, but I am not particularly fond of it."

"You mistake: I did not ask you whether you were fond of it," said Mrs.

Perkin; "I asked you if you had ever done any"; and she smiled severely, but ludicrously, for a diagonal smile is apt to have a comic effect. "Here!--take off your gloves," she continued, "and let me see you do one of these loose-worked sunflowers. They are the fashion now, though. I dare say, you will not be able to see the beauty of them."

"Please, ma'am," returned Mary, "if you will excuse me, I would rather go to my room. I have had a long journey, and am very tired."

"There is no room yours.--I have had no character with you.--Nothing can be done til Mrs. Redman comes home, and she and I have had a little talk about you. But you can go to the housemaid's--the second housemaid's room, I mean--and make yourself tidy. There is a spare bed in it, I believe, which you can have for the night; only mind you don't keep the girl awake talking to her, or she will be late in the morning, and that I never put up with. I think you will do. You seem willing to learn, and that is half the battle."

Therewith Mrs. Perkin, believing she had laid in awe the foundation of a rightful authority over the young person, gave her a nod of dismissal, which she intended to be friendly.

"Please, ma'am," said Mary, "could I have one of my boxes taken up stairs?"

"Certainly not. I can not have two movings of them; I must take care of my men. And your boxes, I understand, are heavy, quite absurdly so. It would _look_ better in a young person not to have so much to carry about with her."

"I have but two boxes, ma'am," said Mary.

"Full of _books_, I am told."

"One of them only."

"You must do your best without them to-night. When I have made up my mind what is to be done with you, I shall let you have the one with your clothes; the other shall be put away in the box-room. I give my people what books I think fit. For light reading, the 'Fireside Herald'

is quite enough for the room.--There--good night!"

Mary courtesied, and left her. At the door she glanced this way and that to find some indication to guide her steps. A door was open at the end of a pa.s.sage, and from the odor that met her, it seemed likely to be that of the kitchen. She approached, and peeped in.

"Who is that?" cried a voice irate.

It was the voice of the second cook, who was there supreme except when the _chef_ was present. Mary stepped in, and the woman advanced to meet her.

"May I ask to what I am indebted for the honner of this unexpected visit?" said the second cook, whose head its overcharge of self-importance jerked hither and thither upon her neck, as she seized the opportunity of turning to her own use a sentence she had just read in the "Fireside Herald" which had taken her fancy--spoken by Lady Blanche Rivington Delaware to a detested lover disinclined to be dismissed.

"Would you please tell me where to find the second house-maid," said Mary. "Mrs. Perkin has sent me to her room."

"Why don't Mrs. Perkin show you the way, then?" returned the woman.

"There ain't n.o.body else in the house as I knows on fit to send to the top o' them stairs with you. A nice way Jemim' 'ill be in when _she_ comes 'ome, to find a stranger in her room!"

The same instant, however, the woman bethought herself that, if what she had said in her haste were reported, it would be as much as her place was worth; and at once thereupon she a.s.sumed a more complaisant tone. Casting a look at her saucepans, as if to warn them concerning their behavior in her absence, she turned again to Mary, saying:

"I believe I better show you the way myself. It's easier to take you than find a girl to do it. Them hussies is never where they oughto be!

_You_ follow _me_."

She led the way along two pa.s.sages, and up a back staircase of stone--up and up, till Mary, unused to such heights, began to be aware of knees. Plainly at last in the regions of the roof, she thought her hill Difficulty surmounted, but the cook turned a sharp corner, and Mary following found herself once more at the foot of a stair--very narrow and steep, leading up to one of those old-fashioned roof-turrets which had begun to appear in the new houses of that part of London.

"Are you taking me to the clouds, cook?" she said, willing to be cheerful, and to acknowledge her obligation for laborious guidance.

"Not yet a bit, I hope," answered the cook; "we'll get there soon enough, anyhow--excep' you belong to them peculiars as wants to be saints afore their time. If that's your sort, don't you come here; for a wickeder 'ouse, or an 'ouse as you got to work harder in o' Sundays, no one won't easily find in this here west end."

With these words she panted up the last few steps, immediately at the top of which was the room sought. It was a very small one, scarcely more than holding the two beds. Having lighted the gas, the cook left her; and Mary, noting that one of the beds was not made up, was glad to throw herself upon it. Covering herself with her cloak, her traveling-rug, and the woolen counterpane, she was soon fast asleep.

She was roused by a cry, half of terror, half of surprise. There stood the second housemaid, who, having been told nothing of her room-fellow, stared and gasped.

"I am sorry to have startled you," said Mary, who had half risen, leaning on her elbow. "They ought to have told you there was a stranger in your room."

The girl was not long from the country, and, in the midst of the worst vulgarity in the world, namely, among the servants of the selfish, her manners had not yet ceased to be simple. For a moment, however, she seemed capable only of panting, and pressing her hand on her heart.

"I am very sorry," said Mary, again; "but you see I won't hurt you! I don't look dangerous, do I?"

"No, miss," answered the girl, with an hysterical laugh. "I been to the play, and there was a man in it was a thief, you know, miss!" And with that she burst out crying.

It was some time before Mary got her quieted, but, when she did, the girl was quite reasonable. She deplored that the bed was not made up, and would willingly have yielded hers; she was sorry she had not a clean night-gown to offer her--"not that it would be fit for the likes of _you_, miss!"--and showed herself full of friendly ministration.

Mary being now without her traveling-cloak, Jemima judged from her dress she must be some grand visitor's maid, vastly her superior in the social scale: if she had taken her for an inferior, she would doubtless, like most, have had some airs handy.

CHAPTER XXVI.

HER POSITION.

Mary seemed to have but just got to sleep again, when she was startled awake by the violent ringing of a bell, almost at her ear.

"Oh, you needn't trouble yet a long while, miss!" said the girl, who was already dressing. "I've got ever so many fires to light, ere there'll be a thought of you!"

Mary lay down again, and once more fell fast asleep.

She was waked the third time by the girl telling her that breakfast was ready; whereupon she rose, and made herself as tidy as she could, while Jemima _cleaned herself up a bit,_ and was not a little improved in the process.

"I thought," she said, "as Mrs. Perkin would 'a' as't you to your first meal with her; but she told me, when I as't what were to be done with you, as how you must go to the room, and eat your breakfast with the rest of us."

"As Mrs. Perkin pleases," said Mary.

She had before this come to understand the word of her Master, that not what enters into a man defiles him, but only what comes out of him; hence, that no man's dignity is affected by what another does to him, but only by what he does, or would like to do, himself.

She did, however, feel a little shy on entering "the room," where all the livery and most of the women servants were already seated at breakfast. Two of the men, with a word to each other, made room for her between them, and laughed; but she took no notice, and seated herself at the bottom of the table with her companion. Everything was as clean and tidy as heart could wish, and Mary was glad enough to make a good meal.

For a few minutes there was loud talking--from a general impulse to show off before the stranger; then fell a silence, as if some feeling of doubt had got among them. The least affected by it was the footman who had opened the door to her: he had witnessed her reception by Mrs.

Perkin. Addressing her boldly, he expressed a hope that she was not too much fatigued by her journey. Mary thanked him in her own natural, straightforward way, and the consequence was, that, when he spoke to her next, he spoke like a gentleman--in the tone natural to him, that is, and in the language of the parlor, without any mock-politeness.

And, although the way they talked among themselves made Mary feel as if she were in a strange country, with strange modes, not of living merely, but of feeling and of regarding, she received not the smallest annoyance during the rest of the meal--which did not last long: Mrs.

Perkin took care of that.

For an hour or more, after the rest had scattered to their respective duties, she was left alone. Then Mrs. Perkin sent for her.

When she entered her room, she found her occupied with the cook, and was allowed to stand unnoticed.

"When shall I be able to see Mrs. Redmain, ma'am?" she asked, when the cook at length turned to go.