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 U
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 VOL. r.
 
 LONDON 
 
 PEINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 
 
 JTEW-STBEET SQUAHE
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN," 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. L 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN, 
 
 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
 1863. 
 
 The right of Translation it reserved.
 
 
 rREFACE. 
 
 
 ;j' Books written "with a purpose" are so 
 
 • — . 
 
 ^ often disapproved 'of, that the author may 
 v^^ as well confess openly that this book has 
 ^one — a distinct, deliberate purpose, from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 The relation betAveen domestic servants 
 ^ and their employers is becoming such a 
 serious question, that anything which any 
 thoughtful woman, who has had some obser- 
 \ vation and experience in the matter, can 
 v^ say thereupon, is possibly not unworthy a 
 - ^ hearing ; even if it only rouses wiser women 
 to think and say something more. I trust, 
 therefore, that all who agree with me in 
 \5/ ^ the opinions here expressed, ^dll disseminate 
 this tale as widely as possible; that mis- 
 tresses will send it down to the kitchen ; 
 
 4
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 that benevolent ladies who are Sunday 
 school teachers and district visitors will 
 lend it among the poor ; and that masters 
 — if any read it, for it is not exactly a 
 man's book — will try to circulate it among 
 mechanics and mechanics' wives and daugh- 
 ters. It may thus reach the class for whom 
 it was specially written, and with a view to 
 whom it was originally published in " Good 
 Words." 
 
 I also wish to say, that though, of course, 
 the incidents of " Mistress and Maid" are 
 purely imaginary, one character therein is 
 not. Had I told the real history of the 
 original of Elizabeth Hand^ it would have 
 been the story of a life more beautiful in 
 its simplicity, self-denial, and self-devotion, 
 than any fiction of mine. I have felt 
 myself justified, not only as a tribute to the 
 memory of the dead, but as an incentive 
 and ensample to the living, in thus " putting 
 into a book,'' literally and faithfully painted, 
 the portrait of one who was unto the end 
 of her days — to both God and man — a 
 faithful servant.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 She was a rather tall, awkward, strongi}-- 
 built girl of about fifteen. This was the 
 first impression which the maid gave to 
 her mistresses, the Misses Leaf, when she 
 entered their kitchen, accompanied by her 
 mother; who was a widow and washer- 
 woman, by name Mrs. Hand. I must 
 confess, when they saw the damsel, the 
 ladies felt a, certain twino;e of doubt as 
 to whether they had not been rash in 
 ofi'ering to take her into their service y 
 whether it would not have been wiser 
 
 still to have jrone on in their old 
 
 to 
 
 way 
 
 now, alas ! grown into a very old way, so 
 as almost to make them forget they had 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 ever had any other — and done without a 
 servant. 
 
 Many consultations had the three sisters 
 held together before such a revolutionary 
 extravao^ance was determined on. But 
 Miss Leaf was beginning both to look and 
 to feel " not so young as she had been ; " 
 Miss Selina, ditto ; though, being still under 
 forty, she would not have acknowledged it 
 for the world. And Miss Hilary, young, 
 bright, and active as she was, could by no 
 possibility do everything that was to be 
 done in the little establishment ; be, for 
 instance, in three places at once — in the 
 school-room, teaching little boys and girls 
 — in the kitchen, cooking dinner — and 
 in the rooms upstairs, busy at housemaid's 
 work. Besides, much of her time was 
 spent in waiting upon " poor Selina," who 
 frequently w^as, or fancied herself, too ill to 
 take any part in either the school or house 
 duties. 
 
 Though, the trouble being inevitable, she 
 said little about it. Miss Leaf's heart was 
 often sore to see Hilary's pretty hands 
 smeared by blacking grates, and roughened
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 3 
 
 by scouring floors. To herself this sort of 
 thing had become natural — but Hilary! 
 
 During the time of Hilary's childhood, 
 she, the youngest of the family, had of 
 course been spared all housework ; and 
 afterwards her studies had left no time 
 for it. For she was a clever girl, with a 
 genuine love of knowledge ; Latin, Greek, 
 and even the higher branches of arithmetic 
 and mathematics, were not beyond her 
 range \ and these studies she found much 
 more interestino; than Avashins; dishes or 
 sweeping floors. True, she always did 
 whatever domestic duty she was told to 
 do; but her inclinations were not in the 
 household line. She had only lately learnt 
 to " see dust," to make a pudding, to iron 
 a shirt; and, moreover, to reflect, as she 
 slowly woke up to the knowledge of how 
 these things should be done, and how 
 necessary they were — what must have been 
 her eldest sister's lot during all these 
 twenty years ! What pains, what weari- 
 ness, what incessant toil must Johanna 
 have endured — and endured in patient
 
 4 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 silence — in order to do all those hundred 
 and one small household things which till 
 now had seemed to do themselves. 
 
 Therefore, after much cogitation as to 
 the best and most prudent Avay to amend 
 matters, and perceiving with her clear com- 
 mon sense that, willing as she might be to 
 work in the kitchen, her own time would 
 be much more valuably spent in teaching 
 their little school, it was Hilary who, these 
 Christmas holidays, first started the bold 
 idea, "We must have a servant." And 
 therefore, it being necessary to begin with 
 a very small servant, on very low wages 
 (£3 per annum was, I fear, the maximum), 
 did they take this Elizabeth Hand. 
 
 So, hanging behind her parent^ an anxious- 
 eyed and rather sad-voiced woman, did 
 Elizabeth enter the kitchen of the Misses 
 Leaf. 
 
 The ladies were all there — Johanna 
 arranging the table for their early tea ; 
 Selina lying on the sofa, trying lazily to 
 cut bread and butter; Hilary on her knees 
 before the fire, making the bit of toast —
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 5 
 
 her eldest, sister's one luxury. This ^Yas 
 the picture that her three mistresses pre- 
 sented to EHzabeth's eyes; eyes which, 
 though they seemed to notice nothing, 
 in reality, as events proved, noticed every- 
 thing. 
 
 " I 've brought my daughter, ma'am, as 
 you sent word you 'd take on trial," said 
 Mrs. Hand, addressing herself to Selina, 
 who, as the tallest, the best-dressed, and 
 the most imposing, was usually regarded 
 by strangers as the head of the family. 
 
 ''Oh, it's about the servant. Here, 
 Johanna ! " 
 
 Miss Leaf came forward, rather uncer- 
 tainly, for she was of a shy nature, and had 
 been so long accustomed to do the menial 
 work of the household, that she felt quite 
 awkward in the character of mistress. In- 
 stinctively she hid her poor roughened 
 hands, that would at once have betrayed 
 her to the sharp eyes of the working- 
 woman, and then, ashamed of her momen- 
 tary false pride, laid them outside her 
 apron and sat down.
 
 6 MISTRESS AND ]VIAID. 
 
 " Will you take a chair, Mrs. Hand? My 
 sister told you, I believe, all our require- 
 ments. We only want a good, intelligent 
 girl. We are willing to teach her every- 
 thing." 
 
 '' Thank you kindly ; and I be willing 
 and glad for her to learn, ma'am." replied 
 the mother, her sharp and rather free tone 
 subdued in spite of herself by the gentle 
 voice of Miss Leaf. Of course, living in 
 the same country town, she knew all about 
 the three school-mistresses, and how till 
 now they had kept no servant. " It 's her 
 first place, and her '11 be awk'ard at first, 
 most like. Hold up your head, Elizabeth." 
 
 " Is her name Elizabeth? " 
 
 "Far too long and too fine," observed 
 Selina from the sofa. " Call her Betty." 
 
 " Anything you please, miss ; but her 
 name 's Elizabeth. It wor my young 
 missis's name in my first place, where I 
 lived till I wor married." 
 
 "We will call her Elizabeth," said Miss 
 Leaf, with the gentle decision she could 
 use on occasion. 
 
 There was a little more discussion be-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 7 
 
 tween the motlier and the future mistress 
 as to holidays, Sundays, and so forth, dur- 
 ing which time the new servant stood 
 silent and impassive in the doorway be- 
 tween the back-lvitchen and the kitchen, or, 
 as it is called in those regions, the house- 
 place. 
 
 As before said, Elizabeth was by no 
 means a personable girl, and her clothes 
 did not set her off to advantage. Her 
 cotton frock hung in straight lines down to 
 her ankles, displaying her clumsily-shod 
 feet and woollen stockings ; above it was a 
 pinafore — a regular child's pinafore, of 
 the cheap, strong, blue-speckled print, 
 which in those days was generally worn. 
 A little shabby shawl, pinned at the throat, 
 and pinned very carelessly and crookedly, 
 with an old black bonnet, much too small 
 for her large head and her quantities of ill- 
 kept hair, completed the costume. It did 
 not impress favourably a lady who, being, 
 or rather having been, very handsome her- 
 self, was as much alive to appearances as 
 the second Miss Leaf. 
 
 She made several rather depreciatory
 
 8 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 observations, and insisted strongly that the 
 new servant should only be taken " on 
 trial," with no obligation for them to keep 
 her a day longer than they wished. Her 
 uneasy feeling on the matter commu- 
 nicated itself to Johanna, who closed the 
 negotiation with Mrs. Hand, by saying — 
 
 "Well, let us hope your daughter wdll 
 suit us. We will give her a fair chance at 
 all events." 
 
 " Which is all I can ax for. Miss Leaf. 
 Her bean't much to look at, buther's willin' 
 and sharp, and her 's never told me a lie in 
 her life. Curtsey to thy missus, and say 
 thee 'It do thy best, Elizabeth." 
 
 Pulled forward, Elizabeth did curtsey, 
 but she never offered to speak. And Miss 
 Leaf, feeling that for the sake of all parties 
 the intervicAv had better be shortened, rose 
 from her chair. 
 
 Mrs. Hand took the hint and departed, 
 saying only, " Good-bye, Elizabeth," with 
 a nod, half-encouraging, half-admonitory, 
 which Elizabeth silently returned. This 
 was all the adieu between mother and 
 daughter : they neither kissed nor shock
 
 IVUSTEESS AND INIAID. 9 
 
 hands, which undemonstrative farewell 
 somewhat surprised Hilary. 
 
 Kow, Miss Hilary Leaf had all this while 
 gone on toasting her slice of bread — 
 luckily for it, the fire was low and black : 
 meantime, from behind her long drooping 
 curls (which Johanna would not let her 
 "turn up," though she was twenty), she 
 was making her observations on the new 
 servant. It might be, that, possessing 
 more head than the one and more heart 
 than the other, Hilary was gifted with 
 deeper perception of character than either 
 of her sisters; but certainly her expression, 
 as she watched Elizabeth, was rather 
 amused and kindly than dissatisfied. 
 
 " Now, girl, take off your bonnet," said 
 Selina, to whom Johanna had silently ap- 
 pealed in her perplexity as to the next pro- 
 ceeding with regard to the new member of 
 the household. 
 
 Elizabeth obeyed, and then stood, irre- 
 solute, awkward, and wretched to the last 
 degree, at the furthest end of the house- 
 place. 
 
 " Shall I show you where to hang up
 
 10 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 your things? " said Hilary, speaking for the 
 first tirae ; and at the new voice, so quick, 
 cheerful, and pleasant, Elizabeth visibly 
 started. 
 
 Miss Hilary rose from her knees, crossed 
 the kitchen, took from the girl's unresisting 
 hands the old black bonnet and shawl, and 
 hung them up carefully on a nail behind 
 the great eight-day clock. It was a simple 
 action, done quite without intention, and 
 accepted without acknowledgment, except 
 one quick glance of that keen yet soft 
 grey eye; but years and years after it 
 was remembered and referred to. 
 
 And now Elizabeth stood forth in her own 
 proper likeness, unconcealed by bonnet or 
 shawl, or maternal protection. The pina- 
 fore scarcely covered her gaunt neck and 
 long arms : that great head of rough, 
 dusky hair was evidently for the first time 
 gathered into a comb. Thence elf-locks 
 escaped in all directions, and were for ever 
 being pushed behind her ears, or rubbed 
 (not smoothed ; there was nothing smooth 
 about her) back from her forehead ; which 
 Hilary noticed was lov/, broad, and full.
 
 ^nSTKESS AXD MAID. 11 
 
 The rest of her face, except the before-men- 
 tioned eyes, was absolutely and undeni- 
 ably plain. Her figure, so far as the pinafore 
 exhibited it, was undeveloped and ungainly; 
 the chest being contracted and the shoulders 
 rounded, as if with carrying children or 
 other weights while still a growing girl. 
 In fact, nature and circumstances had ap- 
 parently united in dealing unkindly with 
 Elizabeth Hand. 
 
 Still here she was ; and what was to be 
 done with her ? 
 
 Having sent her with the small burden 
 which was apparently all her luggage, to 
 the little room — formerly a box-closet — 
 where she was to sleep, the Misses Leaf 
 took serious counsel together over their tea. 
 
 Tea itself suggested the first difficulty. 
 They were always in the habit of taking 
 that meal, and indeed every other, in the 
 kitchen. It saved time, trouble, and fire ; 
 besides leaving the parlour always tidy for 
 callers, chiefly pupils' parents, and prevent- 
 ing these latter from discovering that the 
 three orphan daughters of Henry Leaf, 
 Esq., solicitor, and sisters of Henry Leaf,
 
 12 MISTRESS AND INTAID. 
 
 Junior, Esq., also solicitor, whose sole 
 mission in life seemed to have been to spend 
 everything, make everybody miserable, 
 marry, and die — that these three ladies did 
 always wait upon themselves at meal-times, 
 and did sometimes breakfast without butter, 
 and dine without meat. Now, this system 
 would not do any longer. 
 
 " Besides, there is no need for it," said 
 Hilary, cheerfully. " I am sure we can 
 well afford both to keep and to feed a ser- 
 vant, and to have a fire in the parlour 
 every day. Why not take our meals there, 
 and sit there regularly of evenings ? " 
 
 "We must," added Selina, decidedly. 
 " For my part, I could n't eat, or sew, or 
 do anything with that great, hulking girl 
 sitting staring opposite; — or standing ; for 
 how could we ask her to sit ? Already, 
 what must she have thought of us — people 
 who take tea in the kitchen ? " 
 
 "I do not think that matters," said the 
 eldest sister, gently, after a moment's si- 
 lence. " Everybody in the town knows who 
 and what we are, or might if they chose to 
 inquire. We cannot conceal our poverty
 
 MISTKESS AND MAID. 13 
 
 if we tried ; and I don't think anybody 
 looks down upon us for it. Not even since 
 we began to keep school, which you thought 
 was such a terrible thing, Selina." 
 
 "And it was. I have never reconciled 
 myself to teaching the baker's two boys and 
 the grocer's little girl. You were wrong, 
 Johanna, you ought to have drawn the line 
 somewhere, and it ought to have excluded 
 tradespeople." 
 
 " Beo-o:ars cannot be choosers," said 
 Hilary. 
 
 " Be^o-ars ! " echoed Selina. 
 
 " Xo, my dear, we never were that," said 
 Miss Leaf, interposing against one of the 
 sudden storms that were often breaking 
 out between these two. "You know well 
 we have never begged nor borrowed from 
 anybody, and hardly ever been indebted to 
 anybody, except for the extra lessons that 
 Mr. Lyon would insist upon giving to ilscott 
 after school-hours." 
 
 Here Johanna suddenly stopped, and 
 Hilary, with a slight colour rising in her 
 face, said — 
 
 " I think, sisters, we are forgetting that
 
 14 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 the staircase is quite open, and though I 
 am sure she has an honest look, and not 
 that of a listener, still Elizabeth might hear. 
 Shall I call her downstairs, and tell her to 
 light a fire in the parlour ?" 
 
 While she is doing it — and in spite of 
 Selina's forebodings to the contrary, the 
 small maiden did it quickly and well, espe- 
 cially after a hint or two from Hilary — let 
 me take the opportunity of making a little 
 picture of this same Hilary. 
 
 Little it should be, for she was a decidedly 
 little woman ; small altogether, hands, feet, 
 and figure being in satisfactory proportion. 
 Her movements, like those of most little 
 women, were light and quick rather than 
 elegant ; yet everything she did was done 
 with a neatness and delicacy which gave an 
 involuntary sense of grace and harmony. 
 She was, in brief, one of those people who are 
 best described by the word " harmonious ; " 
 people who never set your teeth on edge, or 
 rub you up the wrong way, as very excellent 
 people occasionally do. Yet she was not 
 over-meek, or unpleasantly amiable ; there 
 was a liveliness and even briskness about
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 15 
 
 her, as if the everyday wine of her life had 
 a spice of champagniness, not frothiness, 
 but natural effervescence of spirit, meant 
 to *' cheer but not inebriate " a household. 
 
 And in her own household this gift was 
 most displayed. IS^o centre of a brilliant, 
 admiring circle could be more charming, 
 more witty, more irresistibly amusing than 
 was Hilary sitting by the kitchen fireside, 
 with the cat on her knee, between her two 
 sisters, and the schoolboy Ascott Leaf, their 
 nephew ; — which four individuals, the cat 
 being not the least important of them, con- 
 stituted the family. 
 
 In the family Hilary shone supreme. All 
 
 recognised her as the light of the house, and 
 
 so she had been, ever since she was born, 
 
 ever since her 
 
 Dying mother mild, 
 Said, Avith accents undefiled, 
 " Child, be mother to this child." 
 
 It was said to Johanna Leaf — who was not 
 Mrs. Leaf's own child. But the good step- 
 mother, who on her marriage-day had taken 
 the little motherless girl to her bosom, and 
 never since made the slightest difference
 
 16 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 between her and her own children, knew 
 well whom she was trusting. 
 
 From that solemn hour, in the middle of 
 the nio-ht, when Johanna lifted the hour- 
 old baby out of its dead mother's bed into 
 her own, it became her one object in life. 
 Through a sickly infancy, for it was a 
 child born amidst trouble, her sole hands 
 washed, dressed, fed it: night and day it 
 " lay in her bosom, and was unto her as a 
 daughter." 
 
 She was then just thirty : not too old to 
 look forward to woman's natural destiny, a 
 husband and children of her own. But 
 years slipped by, and she remained Miss 
 Leaf still. What matter? Hilary was her 
 daughter. 
 
 Johanna's pride in her knew no bounds. 
 Not that she showed it much : indeed, she 
 deemed it a sacred duty not to show it ; 
 but to make believe her "child" was just 
 like other children. But Hilary was not. 
 Nobody ever thought she was — even in 
 externals. Fate gave her all those gifts 
 which are sometimes sent to make up for
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 17 
 
 the lack of worldly prosperity. Her brown 
 eyes were as soft as doves', yet could 
 dance with fun and mischief if they chose : 
 her hair, brown also, with a dark-red shade 
 in it, crisped itself in two wavy lines over 
 her forehead, and then tumbled down in two 
 glorious masses, which Johanna, ignorant, 
 alas ! of art, called " very untidy," and la- 
 boured in vain to quell under combs, or to 
 arrange in proper regular curls. Her fea- 
 tures — well, they too were good ; better 
 than these unartistic people had any idea 
 of; better even than Selina's, who in her 
 youth had been the belle of the town. 
 But whether artistically correct or not, 
 Johanna, though she would on no account 
 have acknowledged it, believed solemnl}^ 
 that there was not such a face in the whole 
 world as little Hilary's. 
 
 Possibly, a similar idea dawned on the 
 apparently dull mind of Elizabeth Hand, 
 for she watched her youngest mistress 
 intently, from kitchen to parlour, and from 
 parlour back to kitchen; and once when 
 Miss Hilary stood giving information as to 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 18 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 the proper abode of broom, bellows, &c., 
 the little maid gazed at her with such ad- 
 miring observation that the scuttle she 
 carried was tilted, and the coals were strewn 
 all over the kitchen floor. At which cata- 
 strophe Miss Leaf looked miserable. Miss 
 Selina spoke crossly, and Ascott, who just 
 then came in to his tea, late as usual, burst 
 into a shout of laughter. 
 
 It was as much as Hilary could do to 
 help laughing herself, she being too near 
 her nephev/'s own age always to maintain 
 a dignified, aunt-like attitude ; but never- 
 theless when, having disposed of her sisters 
 in the parlour, she coaxed Ascott into 
 the school-room, and insisted upon his 
 Latin being done, she helping him, Aunt 
 Hilary scolded him well, and bound him 
 over to keep the peace towards the new 
 servant. 
 
 " But she is such a queer one. Exactly 
 like a South Sea Islander. When she 
 stood with her grim, stolid, despairing 
 countenance, contemplating the coals — oh, 
 Aunt Hilary, how killing she was ! "
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 19 
 
 And the regular, rollicking, irresistible 
 boy-laugh broke out again. 
 
 " She will be great fun. Is she really to 
 stay?" 
 
 " I hope so,'' said Hilary, trying to be 
 grave. " I hope never again to see Aunt 
 Johanna cleaning the stairs, and getting up 
 to lio[ht the kitchen fire of winter mornino^s, 
 as she will do, if we have not a servant to 
 do it for her. Don't you see, Ascott ? " 
 
 *^ Oh, I see," answered the boy, carelessly. 
 " But don't bother me, please. Domestic 
 afikirs are for women, not men." Ascott 
 was eighteen, and just about to pass out of 
 his caterpillar state as a doctor's apprentice- 
 lad, into the chrysalis condition of a medical 
 student in London. " But," with sudden 
 reflection, '^ I hope the girl won't be in my 
 w\ay. Don't let her meddle with any of my 
 books and things." 
 
 " No; you need not be afraid. I have put 
 all into your room. I myself cleared your 
 rubbish out of the box-closet " — 
 
 "The box-closet. Now, really, I can't 
 stand " — 
 
 c2
 
 20 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " She is to sleep in the box-closet; where 
 else could she sleep ? " said Hilary, reso- 
 lutely, though inly quaking a little ; for, 
 somehow, the merry, handsome, rather 
 exacting lad had acquired considerable 
 influence in this household of women. 
 *' You must put up with the loss of your 
 ' den,' Ascott : it would be a great shame 
 if you did not. Can't you give up such a 
 small thing for the sake of Aunt Johanna, 
 and the rest of us ? " 
 
 " Um ! " grumbled the boy, who, though 
 he was not a bad fellow at heart, had a 
 boy's dislike to "putting up" with the 
 slightest inconvenience. "Well, it won't 
 last long. I shall be off shortly. What a 
 jolly life I '11 have in London, Aunt Hilary 1 
 I '11 see Mr. Lyon there, too." 
 
 " Yes," said Aunt Hilary, briefly, return- 
 ing to Dido and ^Eneas — humble and easy 
 Latinity for a student of eighteen ; but, being 
 apprenticed early, Ascott's education had 
 been much neglected, till Mr. Lyon came as 
 usher to the Stowbury grammar-school, and 
 happening to meet and take an interest in
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 21 
 
 him, taught him and his Aunt Hilary 
 Latin, Greek, and mathematics together, of 
 evenings. 
 
 I shall make no mysteries here. Human 
 nature is human nature all the world over. 
 A tale with no love in it would be un- 
 natural, unreal, impossible ; for there are 
 no histories and no lives without love ; or 
 if there could be, they need both pity 
 and pardon, for they must be mere abor- 
 tions of humanity. 
 
 Thank heaven, we, most of us, do not 
 philosophise: we only live. We like one 
 another, we hardly know why ; we love one 
 another, we still less know why. If on the 
 day she first saw — it was in Stowbury church 
 — Mr. Lyon's grave, heavy-browed, some- 
 what severe face; for he was a Scotchman, 
 and his sharp, strong Scotch features did 
 look "hard," beside the soft, rosy, well-condi- 
 tioned Saxon youth of Stowbury ; if on that 
 Sunday any one had told Hilary Leaf that 
 the face of this stranger was to be the one 
 face of her life, stamped upon brain, and 
 heart, and soul with a vividness that no after
 
 22 MISTRESS AND IMAID. 
 
 impressions were strong enough to efface, 
 and retained there with a tenacity that no 
 vicissitudes of time, or place, or fortune 
 had power to alter, Hilary v/ould — yes, I 
 think she would — have quietly kept looking 
 on. She would have accepted her lot, such 
 as it was, with its shine and shade, its joy 
 and its anguish : it came to her without her 
 seeking, as most of the solemn things in life 
 do; and whatever it brought with it, it 
 could have come from no other source than 
 that from which all high, and holy, and 
 pure loves ever must come — the will and 
 permission of God. 
 
 Mr. Lyon himself requires no long de- 
 scription. In his first visit he had told Miss 
 Leaf all about himself that there was to be 
 known : that he was, as they were, a poor 
 teacher, who had altogether "made himself," 
 as so many Scotch students do. His father, 
 whom he scarcely remembered, had been a 
 small Ayrshire farmer; his mother was 
 dead, and he had never had either brother 
 or sister. 
 
 Seeing how clever Miss Hilary was, and
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 23 
 
 how, as a schoolmistress, she would need all 
 the education she could possibly get, he had 
 offered to teach her along with her nephew ; 
 and she and Johanna were only too thank- 
 ful for the advantao^e. But durins; the 
 teaching he had also taught her another 
 thing, which neither had contemplated at 
 the time — to respect him with her whole 
 soul, and to love him with her whole 
 heart. 
 
 Over this simple fact let no more be now 
 said. Hilary said nothing. She recognised 
 it herself as soon as he was gone ; a plain, 
 sad, solemn truth which there was no 
 deceiving herself did not exist, even had 
 she wished its non-existence. Perhaps 
 Johanna also found it out, in her darling's 
 extreme paleness and unusual quietness for 
 a while ; but she too said nothing. Mr. 
 Lyon wrote regularly to Ascott, and once 
 or twice to her, Miss Leaf ; but though 
 everyone knew that Hilary was his parti- 
 cular friend in the whole family, he did not 
 write to Hilary. He had departed rather 
 suddenly, on account of some plan which,
 
 24 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 lie said, affected his future very consi- 
 derably ; but which, though he was in the 
 habit of telling them his affairs, he did not 
 further explain. Still Johanna knew he 
 was a good man, and though no man could 
 be quite good enough for her darling — she 
 liked him, she trusted him. 
 
 What Hilary felt none knew. But she 
 was very girlish in some things ; and her 
 life was all before her, full of infinite hope. 
 By and by her colour returned, and her 
 merry voice and laugh were heard about 
 the house just as usual. 
 
 This being the position of affairs, it was 
 not surprising that after Ascot t's last speech 
 Hilary's mind wandered from Dido and 
 Mneas, to vague listening, as the lad began 
 talkino; of his o:rand future — the future of 
 a medical student, all expenses being paid 
 by his godfather, Mr. Ascott, the merchant, 
 of Russell Square, once a shop-boy of 
 Stowbury. Nor was it unnatural that all 
 Ascott/s anticipations of London resolved 
 themselves, in his aunt's eyes, into the one 
 fact that he would " see Mr. Lyon."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 25 
 
 But in telling thus much about her mis- 
 tresses, I have, for the time being, lost 
 sight of Elizabeth Hand. 
 
 Left to herself, the girl stood for a 
 minute or two looking around her in a con- 
 fused manner, then, rousing her faculties, 
 began mechanically to obey the order with 
 which her mistress had quitted the kitchen, 
 and to wash up the tea-things. She did it 
 in a fashion that, if seen, would have made 
 Miss Leaf thankful the ware was only the 
 common set, and not the cherished china 
 belonging to former days : still she did it, 
 noisily it is true, but actively, as if her 
 heart were in her work. Then she took 
 a candle, and peered about her new 
 domains. 
 
 These were small enough, at least they 
 would have seemed so to other eyes than 
 Elizabeth's ; for, until the schoolroom and 
 box-closet above had been kindly added by 
 the landlord, who would have done anything 
 to show his respect for the Misses Leaf, it 
 had been merely a six-roomed cottage — 
 parlour, kitchen, back-kitchen, and three
 
 26 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 upper chambers. It was a very cosy house 
 notwithstanding, and it seemed to Eliza- 
 beth's eyes a perfect palace. 
 
 For several minutes more she stood and 
 contemplated her kitchen, with the fire 
 shining on the round oaken stand in 
 the centre, and the large wooden-bottomed 
 chairs, and the loud-ticking clock with its tall 
 case, the inside of which, with its pendulum 
 and weights, had been a perpetual mystery 
 and delight, first to Hilary's, and then to 
 Ascott's childhood. Then there was the 
 sofa, large and ugly, but oh ! so com- 
 fortable, with its faded, flowered chintz, 
 washed and worn for certainly twenty 
 years. And over all, Elizabeth's keen ob- 
 servation was attracted by a queer machine, 
 apparently made of thin rope and bits of 
 wood, which hung up to the hooks on the 
 ceiling, an old-fashioned baby's swing. 
 Finally, her eye dwelt with content on the 
 blue and red diamond-tiled floor, so easily 
 swept and mopped, and (only Elizabeth did 
 not think of that, for her hard childhood 
 had been all work and no play) so beautiful
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 27 
 
 to whip tops upon ! Hilary and Ascott, 
 condolino' too:etlier over the new servant, 
 congratulated themselves that their delight 
 in this occupation had somewhat faded, 
 though it was really not so many years ago 
 since one of the former's pupils, coming 
 suddenly out of the school-room, had caught 
 her in the act of slowly whipping a pensive 
 top round this same kitchen floor. 
 
 Meantime, Elizabeth penetrated farther, 
 investigating the back-kitchen, with its 
 various conveniences ; especially the pantry, 
 every shelf of which was so neatly arranged 
 and so beautifully clean. Apparently this 
 neatness impressed the girl with a sense of 
 novelty and curiosity ; and though she 
 could hardly be said to meditate — her 
 mind was not sufficiently awakened for 
 that — still, as she stood at the kitchen fire, 
 a slight thoughtfulness deepened the ex- 
 pression of her face, and made it less dull 
 and heavy than it had at first appeared. 
 
 " I wonder which on 'em does it all ? 
 They must work pretty hard, I reckon ; 
 and two o' them's such little uns."
 
 28 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 She stood a while longer ; for sitting 
 down appeared to be to Elizabeth as new a 
 proceeding as thinking ; then she went up 
 stairs, still literally obeying orders, to shut 
 windows and pull down blinds, at night-falL 
 The bedrooms were small, and insufficiently, 
 nay, shabbily furnished ; but the floors 
 were spotless — ah, poor Johanna ! and 
 the sheets, though patched and darned to 
 the last extremity, were white and whole. 
 Nothing was dirty, nothing untidy. There 
 was no attempt at picturesque poverty — 
 for whatever novelists may say, poverty 
 cannot be picturesque ; but all things were 
 decent and in order. The house, poor as it 
 was, gave the impression of belonging to 
 ^' real ladies;" ladies who thought no manner 
 of work beneath them, and who, whatever 
 they had to do, took the pains to do it as 
 well as possible. 
 
 Mrs. Hand's roughly-brought-up daughter 
 had never been in such a house before, and 
 her examination of every new corner of it 
 seemed quite a revelation. Her own little 
 sleeping nook was fully as tidy and com-
 
 mSTRESS AND MAID. 29 
 
 fortable as the rest, which fact v/as not lost 
 upon Elizabeth. That bright look of 
 mingled softness and intelHgence- — the only- 
 thing which beautified her rugged face — 
 came into the girl's eyes as she " turned 
 down " the truckle-bed, and felt the warm 
 blankets and sheets, new and rather coarse, 
 but neatly sewed. 
 
 " Her 's made 'em herseF, I reckon. La!" 
 Which of her mistresses the " her " referred 
 to, remained unspecified ; but Elizabeth, 
 spurred to action by some new idea, went 
 briskly back into the bed-rooms, and looked 
 about to see if there was anything she 
 could find to do. At last, with a sudden 
 inspiration, she peered into a washstand, 
 and found there an empty ewer. Taking 
 it in one hand, and the candle in the other, 
 she ran down stairs. 
 
 Fatal activity ! Hilary's pet cat, startled 
 from sleep on the kitchen-hearth, at the 
 same instant ran wildly up stairs ; there 
 was a start — a stumble — and then down 
 came the candle, the ewer, Elizabeth, 
 and all.
 
 30 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 It was an awful crash. It brought every 
 member of the family to see what was the 
 matter. 
 
 . " AVhat has the girl broken ? " cried 
 Selina. 
 
 " Where has she hurt herself? " anxiously 
 added Johanna. 
 
 Hilary said nothing, but ran for a light, 
 by the aid of which she picked up first the 
 servant, then the candle, and then the 
 fragments of crockery. 
 
 " Why, it's my ewer, my favourite ewer, 
 and it's all smashed to bits, and I never 
 can match it. You careless, clumsy, good- 
 for-nothing creature ! " 
 
 " Please, Selina," whispered her distressed 
 elder sister. 
 
 " Very well, Johanna ; you are the mis- 
 tress, I suppose? why don't you speak to 
 your servant ? " 
 
 Miss Leaf, in an humbled, alarmed way, 
 first satisfied herself that no bodily injury 
 had been sustained by Elizabeth, and then 
 asked her how this disaster had happened 
 — for a serious disaster she felt it was.
 
 MISTRESS AND :MAID. 31 
 
 Not only was the present loss annoying, 
 but a servant with a talent for crockery- 
 breaking would be a far too expensive 
 luxury for them to think of retaining. 
 And she had been listenino^ in the solitude 
 of the parlour to a long lecture from her 
 always dissatisfied younger sister, on the 
 great doubts Selina had about Elizabeth's 
 " suiting." 
 
 " Come now," seeing the girl hesitated, 
 " tell me the plain truth. How was 
 it?" 
 
 " It was the cat! " sobbed Elizabeth. 
 
 " What a barefaced falsehood ! " exclaimed 
 Selina. " You wicked girl, how could it 
 possibly be the cat? Do you know you 
 are telling a lie, and that lies are hateful, 
 and that all liars 2;o to — " 
 
 '^ Nonsense ; hush ! " interrupted Hilary, 
 rather sharply, for Selina's " tongue," the 
 terror of her childhood, now merely an- 
 noyed her. Selina's temper was a long 
 understood household fact — they did not 
 much mind it, knowing her bark was 
 worse than her bite — but it was provoking
 
 32 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 that she should exhibit herself so soon 
 before the new servant. 
 
 The latter first looked up at the lady 
 with simple surprise : then as, in spite of 
 the other two, Miss Selina worked herself 
 into a downright passion, and poured un- 
 limited abuse on the victim's devoted head, 
 Elizabeth's manner changed. After one 
 dogged repetition of, " It was the cat," not 
 another word could be got out of her. She 
 stood, her eyes fixed on the kitchen-floor, 
 her brows knitted, and her under-lip 
 pushed out — the very picture of sullenness. 
 Young as she was, Elizabeth evidently had, 
 like her unfortunate mistress, " a temper of 
 her own " — a spiritual deformity that some 
 people are born with, as others with hare- 
 lip or club-foot ; only, unlike these, it may 
 be conquered ; though the battle is long 
 and sore, sometimes ending only with life. 
 
 It had plainly never commenced with 
 poor Elizabeth Hand* Her appearance, as 
 she stood under the flood of sharp words 
 that streamed out upon her, was sullen, 
 fierce, absolutely repulsive. Hilary even
 
 MISTRESS AND I\IAID. 33 
 
 began to think it would have been easier to 
 teach all day and do house-work half the 
 night, than have the infliction of a servant 
 — to say nothing of the disgrace of seeing 
 Selina's " peculiarities " so exposed before a 
 stranger. 
 
 She knew of old that to stem the torrent 
 was impracticable. The only chance was 
 to let Selina expend her wrath and retire, 
 and then to take some quiet opportunity of 
 explaining to Elizabeth that sharp language 
 was only her sister's way, and must be put 
 up with. Humiliating as this was, and fatal 
 to domestic authority, that the first thing to 
 be taught a new servant was to " put up 
 with " one of her mistresses, still there was 
 no alternative. Hilary had already fore- 
 boded and made up her mind to such a 
 possibility, but she had hoped it would 
 not occur the very first evening. 
 
 It did, however, and its climax was worse 
 even than she anticipated. Whether, irri- 
 tated by the intense sullenness of the girl, 
 Selina's temper was worse than usual, or 
 whether, as is always the case with people 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 like her, something else had vexed her, and 
 she vented it upon the first lesser cause of 
 annoyance that occurred, certain it is that 
 her tongue went on unchecked till it failed 
 from sheer exhaustion. And then, as she 
 flung herself on the sofa — oh, sad mis- 
 chance ! — she caugtt sight of her nephew- 
 standing at the schoolroom door, grinning 
 with intense delight, and making faces at 
 her behind her back. 
 
 It was too much. The poor lady had no 
 more words left to scold with ; but she 
 rushed up to Ascott, and, big lad as he was, 
 she soundly boxed his ears. 
 
 On this terrible climax let the curtain 
 fall.
 
 35 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Common as were the small feuds between 
 Ascott and his Aunt Selina, they seldom 
 reached such a catastrophe as that described 
 in my last chapter. Hilary had to fly to 
 the rescue, and literally drag the furious lad 
 back into the schoolroom, while Johanna, 
 pale and trembling, persuaded Selina to 
 quit the field, and go and lie down. This 
 was not dif&cult ; for the instant she saw 
 what she had done, how she had disgraced 
 herself and insulted her nephew, Selina felt 
 sorry. Her passion ended in a gush of 
 " nervous " tears, under the influence of 
 which she was led up stairs and put to bed 
 almost like a child — the usual termination 
 of these pitiful outbreaks. 
 
 For the time nobody thought of Eliza- 
 beth. The hapless cause of all stood
 
 36 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " spectatress of tlie fray," beside her kitchen 
 fire. What she thought histoiy sayeth not. 
 Whether in her own rough home she was 
 too well accustomed to see brothers and 
 sisters quarrelling, and mothers boxing their 
 children's ears, cannot be known ; whether 
 she was or was not surprised to see the same 
 proceedings among ladies and gentlemen, 
 she never betrayed ; but certain it is, 
 that the little servant became uncommonly 
 serious ; yes, serious rather than sulky, for 
 her ^' black" looks vanished gradually, as 
 soon as Miss Selina left the kitchen. 
 
 On the re-appearance of Miss Hilary the 
 sullenness had quite gone. But Hilary took 
 no notice of her; she was in search of 
 Johanna, who, shaking and cold with 
 agitation, came slowly down stairs. 
 
 " Is Selina gone to bed ?" 
 
 " Yes, my dear. It was the best thing 
 for her ; she is not at all well to-day." 
 
 Hilary's lip curled a little, but she replied 
 not a word. She had not the patience with 
 Selina that Johanna had. She drew her 
 elder sister into the little parlour, placed
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 6i 
 
 her in the arm-chair, shut the door, 
 came and sat beside her, and took her 
 hand. 
 
 Johanna pressed it, shed a few quiet 
 tears, and wiped them away. Then the two 
 sisters remained silent, with hearts sad and 
 sore. 
 
 Every family has its skeleton in the 
 house ; this was theirs. Whether they 
 acknovv^ledged it or not, they knew quite 
 well that every discomfort they had, every 
 slight jar which disturbed the current of 
 household peace, somehow or other origi- 
 nated in " poor Selina." They often called 
 her " poor " with a sort of pity — not un- 
 needed, heaven knows! — for if the unhappy 
 are to be pitied, ten times more so are those 
 who make others miserable. 
 
 This was Selina's case, and had been all her 
 life. And, sometim^es, she herself recognised 
 it. Sometimes, after an especially bad out- 
 break, her compunction and remorse would 
 be almost as terrible as her passion ; forcing 
 her sisters to make every excuse for her ; she 
 " did not mean it," it was only " ill health,"
 
 38 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 or " nerves," or her " unfortunate way of 
 taking things." 
 
 But they knew in their hearts that not 
 all their poverty, and the toils it entailed, 
 not all the hardships and humiliations of 
 their changed estate, were half so bitter to 
 bear as this something — no moral crime, 
 and yet in its results as fatal as crime — 
 which they called Selina's " way." 
 
 Ascott was the only one who did not 
 attempt to mince matters. When a little 
 boy he had openly declared he hated Aunt 
 Selina ; when he grew up he as openly de- 
 fied her ; and it was a most difficult matter 
 to keep even decent peace between them. 
 Hilary's wrath had never gone farther than 
 wishing Selina was married ; that appearing 
 the easiest way to get rid of her. Latterly 
 she had ceased this earnest aspiration ; it 
 might be, because, learning to think more 
 seriously of marriage, she felt that a woman 
 who is no blessing in her own household, is 
 never likely much to bless a husband's ; 
 and that, looking still farther forward, it 
 was on the whole a mercy of Providence
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 39 
 
 which made Selina not the mother of 
 children. 
 
 Yet her not marrying had been some- 
 what a surprise to them all ; for she had 
 been attractive in her day ; handsome 
 in person, and agreeable in society. But 
 perhaps, for all that, the sharp eye of the 
 opposite sex had discovered the cloven 
 foot; since, though she had^ received 
 various promising attentions, poor Selina 
 had never had an offer. Nor fortunately 
 had she ever been known to care for any- 
 body; she was one of those women who 
 would have married as a matter of course, 
 but who never would have been guilty of 
 the weakness of falling in love. There 
 seemed small probability of shipping her off, 
 to carry into a new household the restless- 
 ness, the fretfulness, the captious fault- 
 finding with others, the readiness to take 
 offence at what was done and said to her- 
 self, which made poor Selina Leaf the un* 
 acknowledged grief and torment of her 
 own. 
 
 Her two sisters sat silent. What was the
 
 40 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 use of talking ? It would be only going over 
 and over again the old thing ; trying to 
 ease and shift a little the long-familiar 
 burden, which they knew must be borne. 
 Nearly every household has, near or remote, 
 some such burden, which Heaven only can 
 lift off or help to bear. And sometimes, 
 looking round the world outside, these two 
 congratulated themselves, in a half sort of 
 way, that compared with others' theirs was 
 light ; Selina being, after all, a well-mean- 
 ing, well-principled woman, and, in spite of 
 her little tempers, really fond of her family, 
 at least as fond as any one can be, whose 
 nature has its centre entirely in self. 
 
 Only when Hilary looked, as to-night, 
 into her eldest sister's pale face, where year 
 by year the lines of age were deepening, and 
 saw how every agitation such as the present 
 shook her more and more — she who ought 
 to have a quiet life and a cheerful home, after 
 so many hard years — then Hilary, fierce in 
 the resistance of her youth, felt as if what 
 she could have borne for herself she could 
 not bear for Johanna. At the moment,
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 41 
 
 she sympathised with Ascott in actually 
 "hating" Aunt Selina. 
 
 " Where is that boy ? He ought to be 
 spoken to," Johanna said at length, rising 
 wearily. 
 
 " I have spoken to him ; I gave him a 
 good scolding. He is sorry, and promises 
 never to be so rude again." 
 
 "Oh, no ; not till the next time," replied 
 Miss Leaf, hopelessly. " But, Hilary," with 
 a sudden consternation, " what are we to 
 do about Elizabeth ? " 
 
 The younger sister had thought of that. 
 She had turned over in her mind all the 
 pros and cons, the inevitable " worries" that 
 would result from the presence of an addi- 
 tional member of the family, especially one 
 from whom the family skeleton could not 
 be hid, to whom it was already only too 
 fatally revealed. 
 
 But Hilary was a clear-headed girl, and 
 she had the rare faculty of seeing things 
 as they really were, undistorted by her 
 own likings or dislikings — in fact, without 
 reference to herself at all. She perceived
 
 42 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 plainly that Johanna ought not to do the 
 housework, that Selina would not, and that 
 she could not — ergo^ they must keep a ser- 
 vant. Better, perhaps, a small servant, 
 over whom they could have the same in- 
 fluence as over a child, than one older and 
 more independent, who would irritate her 
 mistresses at home, and chatter of them 
 abroad. Besides, they had promised Mrs. 
 Hand to give her daughter a fair trial. For 
 a month, then, Elizabeth was bound to stay ; 
 afterwards, time would show. It was best 
 not to meet troubles half way. 
 
 This explained, in Hilary's cheerful voice, 
 seemed greatly to reassure and comfort her 
 sister. 
 
 " Yes, love, you are right ; she must re- 
 main her month out, unless she does some- 
 thing very wrong. Do you think that 
 really was a lie she told ? " 
 
 " About the cat ? I don't quite know 
 what to think. Let us call her, and put 
 the question once more. Do you put it, 
 Johanna. I don't think she could look in 
 your face, and tell you a story."
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 43 
 
 Other people, at sight of that sweet, grave 
 countenance, its bloom faded, and hairs 
 silvered long before their time, yet beauti- 
 ful, with an almost childlike simplicity and 
 childlike peace — most other people would 
 have been of Hilary's opinion. 
 
 "Sit down; I'll call her. Dear me, Jo- 
 hanna, we shall have to set up a bell as well 
 as a servant, unless we had managed to 
 combine the two." 
 
 But Hilary's harmless little joke failed to 
 make her sister smile ; and the entrance of 
 the girl seemed to excite positive apprehen- 
 sion. How was it possible to make excuse 
 to a servant for her mistress's shortcomings ? 
 how scold for ill-doing this young girl, to 
 whom, ere she had been a night in the 
 house, so bad an example had been set ? 
 Johanna half expected Elizabeth to take a 
 leaf out of Selina's book, and begin abusing 
 herself and Hilary. 
 
 No ; she stood very sheepish, very un- 
 comfortable, but not in the least bold or 
 sulky — on the w^hole, looking rather peni- 
 tent and humble.
 
 44 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 Her mistress took courage. 
 
 " Elizabeth, I want you to tell me the 
 truth about that unfortunate breakage. 
 Don't be afraid. I had rather you broke 
 everything in the house than have told me 
 what was not true." 
 
 *' It was true ; it was the cat." 
 
 " How could that be possible ? You were 
 coming down stairs with the ewer in your 
 hand." 
 
 " Her got under my feet, and throwed me 
 down, and so I tumbled, and smashed t^he 
 thing agin the floor." 
 
 The Misses Leaf glanced at each other. 
 This version of the momentous event was 
 probable enough, and the girl's eager, 
 honest manner gave internal confirmatory 
 evidence pretty strong. 
 
 " I am sure she is telling the truth," said 
 Hilary. " And remember what her mother 
 said about her word being always,, reli- 
 able." 
 
 This reference was too much for Eliza- 
 beth. She burst out, not into actual cry- 
 ing, but into a smothered choke.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 45 
 
 ^'If you donnot believe me, missis, I'd 
 rather go home to mother." 
 
 " I do believe you," said Miss Leaf, kindly ; 
 then waited till the pinafore, used as a 
 pocket-handkerchief, had dried up grief and 
 restored composure. 
 
 " I can quite well understand the accident 
 now ; and I am sure, if you had put it as 
 plainly at first, my sister would have under- 
 stood it too. She was very much annoyed, 
 and no wonder. She will be equally glad 
 to find she was mistaken." 
 
 Here Miss Leaf paused, somewhat puz- 
 zled hoY/ to express what she felt it her 
 duty to say, so as to be comprehended by 
 the servant, and yet not let down the dig- 
 nity of the family. Hilary came to her 
 aid. 
 
 " Miss Selina is sometimes hasty; but she 
 means kindly always. You must take care 
 not to vex her, Elizabeth ; and you must 
 never ""answer her back as^ain, however 
 sharply she speaks. It is not your busi- 
 ness ; you are only a child, and she is your 
 mistress."
 
 46 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Is her ? I thought it was this 'un." 
 
 The sudden clouding of Elizabeth's face, 
 and her blunt pointing to Miss Leaf as 
 " this 'un," were too much for Hilary's gra- 
 vity. She was obliged to retreat to the 
 press, and begin an imaginary search for a 
 book. 
 
 " Yes, I am the eldest, and I suppose you 
 may consider me specially as your mistress," 
 said Johanna, simply. " Eemember always 
 to come to me in any difficulty ; and, above 
 all, to tell me everything outright, as soon 
 as it happens. I can forgive you almost 
 any fault, if you are truthful and honest ; 
 but there is one thing I never could forgive, 
 and that is deception. Now go with Miss 
 Hilary, and she will teach you how to make 
 the porridge for supper." 
 
 Elizabeth obeyed, silently ; she had ap- 
 parently a great gift for silence. And she 
 was certainly both obedient and willing: 
 not stupid, either, though a nervousness of 
 temperament, which Hilary was surprised to 
 find in so big and coarse-looking a girl, 
 made her rather awkward at first. How-
 
 ^nSTRESS AND MAID. 47 
 
 ever, she succeeded in pouring out, and 
 carrying into the parlour, without accident, 
 three platefuls of that excellent condiment 
 which formed the frugal supper of the 
 family ; but which they ate, I grieve to say, 
 in heterodox southern fashion, with sugar 
 or treacle, until Mr. Lyon — greatly horri- 
 fied thereby — had instituted his national 
 custom of " supping " porridge with milk. 
 It may be a very unsentimental thing to 
 confess, but Hilary, who even at twenty 
 was rather practical than poetical, never 
 made the porridge without thinking of 
 Kobert Lyon, and the day when he first 
 stayed to supper, and ate it — or as he said, 
 and was very much laughed at, ate '' them " 
 — with such infinite relish. Since then, 
 whenever he came, he always asked for his 
 porridge, saying it carried him back to his 
 childish days. And Hilary, with that curi- 
 ous pleasure that women take in waiting 
 upon any one unto whom the heart is 
 ignorantly beginning to own the allegiance, 
 humble yet proud, of Miranda to Ferdi- 
 nand —
 
 48 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 To be your fellow 
 You may deny me ; but I '11 be your servant 
 "Whether you will or no — 
 
 Hilary contrived always to make his supper 
 herself. 
 
 Those pleasant days were now over ; Mr. 
 Lyon was gone. As she stood alone over 
 the kitchen fire, she thought — as now and 
 then she let herself think for a ininute or 
 two in her busy prosaic life — of that Au- 
 gust night, standing at the front door, of 
 his last "good-bye," and last hand-clasp, 
 tight, w^arm, and firm ; and somehow she, 
 like Johanna, trusted in him. 
 
 Not exactly in his love ; it seemed almost 
 impossible that he should love her^ at least 
 till she grew nmch more w^orthy of him than 
 now ; but in himself, that he would never 
 be less himself, never less thoroughly good 
 and true than now. That, some time, he 
 would be sure to come back again, and take 
 up his old relations with them, brightening 
 their dull life with his cheerfulness; in- 
 fusing into their feminine household the new 
 element of a clear, strong, energetic, manly
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 49 
 
 will, which sometimes made Johanna say 
 that instead of twenty-five the young man 
 might be forty; and, above all, bringing 
 into their poverty the silent sympathy of 
 one who had fought his own battle with 
 the world — a hard one, too, as his face 
 sometimes showed — though he never said 
 much about it. 
 
 Of the results of this pleasant relation — 
 whether, she being the only truly marriage- 
 able person in the house, Robert Lyon's 
 visits were with the intention of marrying 
 her, or he was expected to do so, or 
 society would consider it a very odd thing 
 if he did not do so — this unsophisticated 
 Hilary never thought at all. If he had 
 said to her that the present state of things 
 was to go on for ever, she to remain 
 always Hilary Leaf, and he Robert Lyon, 
 the faithful friend of the family, she would, 
 in her entire ignorance of life and the world, 
 have smiled in his face and been perfectly 
 satisfied. 
 
 True, she had never had anything to 
 drive away the smile from that innocent 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 face ; no vague jealousies aroused ; no ill- 
 natured irritating rumours afloat in the 
 small circle that was his and theirs. Mr. 
 Lyon, grave and sedate in all his ways, 
 never paid the slightest attention to, or ex- 
 pressed the slightest interest in, any woman 
 whatsoever — except herself. 
 
 And so this hapless girl loved him — 
 just himself: without the slightest reference 
 to his " connexions," for he had none ; or 
 his '' prospects," which, if he had any, she 
 did not know of. Alas ! to practical and 
 prudent people I can oifer no excuse for 
 her ; except, perhaps, what Shakspeare 
 gives in the creation of his poor Miranda. 
 
 When the small servant re-entered the 
 kitchen, Hilary, with a half sigh, shook off 
 her dreams, called Ascot t out of the school- 
 room, and returned to the work-a-day 
 world and the family supper. 
 
 This being ended, seasoned with a few 
 quiet words administered to Ascott, and 
 which on the whole he took pretty well, it 
 was nearly ten o'clock. 
 
 " Far too late to have kept such a child as
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 51 
 
 Elizabeth out of her bed ; we must not do 
 it again," said Miss Leaf, taking down the 
 large Bible with which she was accustomed 
 to conclude the day — Ascott's early hours 
 at school and their own house-work makino: 
 it difficult of mornings. Yery brief the 
 reading was, sometimes not more than half 
 a dozen verses, with no comment thereon ; 
 stie thought the Word of God might safely 
 be left to expound itself. Being a very 
 humble-minded woman, she did not feel 
 qualified to lead long devotional " exercises," 
 and she disliked formal written prayers. 
 So she merely read the Bible to her family, 
 and said after it the Lord's Prayer. 
 
 But, constitutionally shy as Miss Leaf 
 was, to do even this in presence of a 
 stranger cost her some effort ; and it was 
 only a sense of duty that made her say 
 "yes" to Hilary's suggestion, "I suppose 
 we ought to call in Elizabeth?" 
 
 Elizabeth came. 
 
 " Sit down," said her mistress ; and she 
 sat down, staring uneasily round about her, 
 as if wondering what was going to befall 
 
 E 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
 
 52 MISTRESS A^^D MAID. 
 
 her next. Yery silent was the small parlour ; 
 so small that it was almost filled up by its 
 large square piano, its six cane-bottomed 
 chairs, and one easy-chair, in the which sat 
 Miss Leaf, with the great Book in her lap. 
 
 " Can you read, Elizabeth ?" 
 
 ^'Yes, ma'am." 
 
 '' Hilary, give her a Bible." 
 
 And so Elizabeth followed, guided by 
 her not too clean finger, the words, read in 
 that soft, low voice, somewhere out of the 
 New Testament ; words simple enough for 
 the comprehension of a child or a heathen. 
 The " South Sea Islander," as Ascott loug 
 persisted in calling her, then, doing as the 
 family did, turned round to kneel down ; 
 but in her confusion she knocked over a 
 chair, causing Miss Leaf to wait a minute 
 till reverent silence was restored. Eliza- 
 beth knelt, with her eyes fixed on the wall : 
 it was a green paper, patterned with bunches 
 of nuts. How far she listened, or how 
 much she understood, it was impossible to 
 say ; but her manner was decent and 
 decorous.
 
 mSTRESS AND MAID. 53 
 
 ^^ Forgive us our trespasses, as ice forgive 
 those that trespass against us.''^ Uncon- 
 sciously Miss Leafs gentle voice rested on 
 these words, so needed in the daily life of 
 every human being, and especially of every 
 family. Was she the only one who thought 
 of " poor Selina?" 
 
 They all rose from their knees, and 
 Hilary put the Bible away. The little 
 servant " hung about," apparently uncertain 
 what was next to be done, or what was 
 expected of her to do. Hilary touched her 
 sister. 
 
 " Yes," said Miss Leaf, recollecting her- 
 self, and assuming the due authority, " it is 
 quite time for all the family to be in bed. 
 Take care of your candle, and mind and be 
 up at six to-morrow morning." 
 
 This was addressed to the new maiden, 
 who dropped a courtesy, and said, almost 
 cheerfully, " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 " Very well. Good night, Elizabeth." 
 
 And following Miss Leaf's example, the 
 other two, even Ascott, said civilly and 
 kindly, " Good night, Elizabeth."
 
 54 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The Christmas holidays ended, and Ascott 
 left for London. It was the greatest house- 
 hold change the Misses Leaf had known for 
 years, and they missed him sorely. Ascott 
 was not exactly a loveable boy, and yet, 
 after the fashion of womankind, his aunts 
 were both fond and proud of him ; fond, in 
 their childless old-maidenhood, of any sort 
 of ne|)hew, and proud, unconsciously, that 
 the said nephew was a big fellow, who could 
 look over all their heads, besides being 
 handsome and pleasant-mannered, and 
 though not clever enough to set the Thames 
 on fire, still sufficiently bright to make 
 them hope that in his future the family star 
 might again rise. 
 
 There was something pathetic in these 
 three women's idealisation of him — even 
 Selina's, who, though quarrelling with him
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 55 
 
 to his face, always praised him behind his 
 back — that great, good-looking, lazy lad ; 
 who, everybody else saw clearly enough, 
 thought more of his own noble self than of 
 all his aunts put together. The only person 
 he stood in awe of was Mr. Lyon — for 
 whom he always protested unbounded re- 
 spect and admiration. How far Robert 
 Lyon liked Ascott even Hilary could never 
 quite find out ; but he was always very kind 
 to him. 
 
 There was one person in the house who, 
 strange to say, did not succumb to the all- 
 dominating youth. From the very first 
 there was a smouldering feud between him 
 and Elizabeth. Whether she overheard, 
 and slowly began to comprehend his mock- 
 ing gibes about the " South Sea Islander," 
 or whether her sullen and dogged spirit 
 resisted the first attempts the lad made to 
 " put upon her '' — as he did upon his aunts, 
 in small daily tyrannies — was never found 
 out; but certainly Ascott, the general fa- 
 vourite, found little favour with the new 
 servant. She never answered when he
 
 56 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " hollo'd " for her ; she resisted blacking his 
 boots more than once a day ; and she 
 obstinately cleared the kitchen fire-place of 
 his ^' messes," as she ignominiously termed 
 various pots and pans belonging to what he 
 called his " medical studies." 
 
 Although the war was passive rather 
 than aggressive, and sometimes a source of 
 private amusement to the aunts, still on 
 the whole it was a relief when the exciting 
 cause of it departed ; his new and most 
 gentlemanly portmanteau being carried 
 downstairs by Elizabeth herself, of her own 
 accord, with an air of cheerful alacrity, 
 foreign to her mien for some weeks past, 
 and which, even in the midst of the dolorous 
 parting, amused Hilary extremely. 
 
 *' I think that girl is a character," she said 
 afterwards to Johanna. " Anyhow, she has 
 curiously strong likes and dislikes." 
 
 " You may say that, my dear ; for she 
 brightens up whenever she looks at you." 
 
 *' Does she ? Oh, that must be because 
 I have most to do with her. It is wonderful 
 how friendly one gets over saucepans and
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 57 
 
 brooms ; and what reverence one inspires 
 in the domestic mind when one really knows 
 how to make a bed or a pudding." 
 
 " How I wish you had to do neither," 
 sighed Johanna, looking fondly at the 
 bright face and light little figure that was 
 flitting about, putting the schoolroom to 
 rights before the pupils came in. 
 
 " Nonsense ; I don't wish any such thing. 
 Doing it makes me not a whit less charming 
 and lovely." She often applied these adjec- 
 tives to herself, with the most perfect con- 
 viction that she was uttering a fiction 
 patent to everybody. " I must be very 
 juvenile also, for I'm certain his fellow- 
 passenger at the station to-day took me for 
 Ascott's sweetheart. When we were saying 
 good-bye, an old gentleman who sat next 
 him was particularly sympathetic, and you 
 should have seen how indignantly Ascott 
 replied, ' It's only my aunt ! ' " 
 
 Miss Leaf laughed, and the shadow va- 
 nished from her face, as Hilary had meant 
 it should. She only said, caressing 
 her —
 
 58 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Well, my pet, never mind ; I hope 
 you may have a real sweetheart some 
 day." 
 
 " I'm in no hurry, thank you, Johanna." 
 
 But now w^as heard the knock after knock 
 of the little boys and girls, and there began 
 that monotonous daily round of school la- 
 bour, rising from the simplicities of c, a, t, 
 cat, and d, o, g, dog, to the sublime heights 
 of Pinnock and Lennie, Telemaque and 
 Latin Delectus. No loftier — Stowbury 
 being well supplied with iirst-class schools, 
 and having a vague impression that the 
 Misses Leaf, born ladies, and not brought up 
 as governesses, were not competent edu- 
 cators except of very small children. 
 
 Which was true enough until lately. So 
 Miss Leaf kept contentedly to the c, a, t, 
 cat, and d, o, g, dog, of the little butchers 
 and bakers, as Miss Selina, who taught only 
 sewing, and came into the school-room but 
 little during the day, scornfully termed 
 them. The higher branches were gra- 
 dually left to Hilary, who, of late, pos- 
 sibly out of sympathy with a friend of hers^
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 59 
 
 had begun to show an actual gift for teach- 
 ing schooL 
 
 It is a gift, all will allow ; and chiefly 
 those who have it not, amongst whom was 
 poor Johanna Leaf The admiring envy 
 with which she watched Hilary, moving 
 briskly about from class to class, with a 
 word of praise to one and rebuke to another, 
 keeping everyone's attention alive, spurring 
 on the dull, controlling the unruly, and 
 exercising over every member in this little 
 world that influence, at once the strongest 
 and most intangible and inexplicable — 
 personal influence — was only equalled by 
 the way in which, at pauses in the day's 
 work, when it grew dull and monotonous, 
 or when the stupidity of the children ruffled 
 her own quick temper beyond endurance, 
 Hilary watched Johanna. 
 
 The time I am telling of is now long ago. 
 The Stowbury children, who were then 
 little boys and girls, are now fathers and 
 mothers — doubtless a large proportion 
 being decent tradesfolk in Stowbury still ; 
 though, in this locomotive quarter, many
 
 60 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 must have drifted off elsewhere — where, 
 Heaven knows! But not a few of them 
 may still call to mind Miss Leaf, who first 
 taught them their letters, sitting in her 
 corner between the fire and the window, 
 while the blind was drawn down to keep 
 out, first, the light from her own fading 
 eyes, and secondly, the distracting view of 
 green fields and trees from the youthful 
 eyes by her side. They may remember 
 still her dark plain dress and her white 
 apron, on which the primers, torn and dirty, 
 looked half ashamed to lie ; and, above all, 
 her sweet face and sweeter voice, never 
 heard in anything sharper than that grieved 
 tone which signified their being " naughty 
 children." They may recall her unwearied 
 patience with the very dullest and most 
 wayward of them — her unfailing sympathy 
 with every infantile pleasure and pain. And 
 I think they will acknowledge that whether 
 she taught them much or little — in this 
 advancing age it might be thought little — 
 Miss Leaf taught them one thing — to love 
 her ; which, as Ben Jonson said of the
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 61 
 
 Countess of Pembroke, was in itself a 
 "liberal education." 
 
 Hilary too ! Often when Hilary^s younger 
 and more restless spirit chafed against the 
 monotony of her life, when instead of 
 wasting her days in teaching small children, 
 she would have liked to be learning, 
 learning — every day growing wiser and 
 cleverer, and stretching out into that busy, 
 bright active world of which Robert Lyon 
 had told her — then the sight of Johanna's 
 meek face, bent over those dirty spelling- 
 books, would at once rebuke and comfort 
 her. She felt, after all, that she would 
 not mind working on for ever, so long as 
 Johanna still sat there. 
 
 Nevertheless, that winter seemed to her 
 very long, especially after Ascott was gone. 
 For Johanna, partly for money, and partly 
 for kindliness, had added to her day's work 
 four evenings a week, when a half-educated 
 mother of one of her little pupils came to 
 be taught to write a decent hand, and to 
 keep the accounts of her shop. Upon 
 which Selina, highly indignant, had taken
 
 62 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 to spending her evenings in the school-room, 
 interrupting Hilary's solitary studies there 
 by many a lamentation over the peaceful 
 days when they all sat in the kitchen 
 together and kept no servant. For Selina 
 was one of those who never saw the bright 
 side of anything till it had gone by. 
 
 '^ I'm sure I don't know how we are to 
 manage with Elizabeth. That greedy" — 
 " And growing," suggested Hilary. 
 " I say, that greedy girl eats as much as 
 any two of us. And as for her clothes — 
 her mother does not keep her even decent." 
 " She would find it difficult upon three 
 pounds a year." 
 
 " Hilary, how dare you contradict me ? 
 I am only stating a plain fact." 
 
 " And I another. But, indeed, I don't 
 want to talk, Selina." 
 
 "You never do, except when you are 
 wished to be silent ; and then your tongue 
 goes like any race-horse." 
 
 " Does it ?— Well, like Gilpin's, 
 
 It carries weight ! it rides a race ! 
 'T is for a thousand pound !
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 63 
 
 — and I only wish it were. Heigho ! if I 
 could but earn a thousand pounds ! " 
 
 Selina was too vexed to reply : and for 
 five quiet minutes Hilary bent over her 
 Homer, which Mr. Lyon had taken such 
 pleasure in teaching her, because, he said, 
 she learnt it faster than any of his grammar- 
 school boys. She had forgotten all domestic 
 grievances in a vision of Thetis and the 
 water-nymphs; and was repeating to her- 
 self, first in the sonorous Greek, and then 
 in Pope's small but sweet English, that 
 catalogue of oceanic beauties, ending with 
 
 Black Janira and Jauassa fair, 
 And Amatlieia with her amber hair. 
 
 " Black, did you say ? I'm sure she vv^as 
 as black as a chimney-sweep all to-day. 
 And her pinafore " — 
 
 '' Her what ? Oh, you mean EHzabeth " — 
 " Her pinafore had three rents in it, which 
 she never thinks of mending, though I gave 
 her needles and thread myself a week ago. 
 But she does not know how to use them 
 any more than a baby."
 
 64 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Possibly nobody ever taught her." 
 
 *' Yes ; she went for a year to the Na- 
 tional School, she says, and learnt both 
 marking and sewing." 
 
 " Perhaps she has never practised them 
 since. She could hardly have had time, 
 with all the little Hands to look after, as 
 her mother says she did. All the better 
 for us. It makes her wonderfully patient 
 with our troublesome brats. It was only 
 to-day, when that horrid little Jacky Smith 
 hurt himself so, that I saw Elizabeth take 
 him into the kitchen, wash his face and 
 hands, and cuddle him up and comfort him 
 quite motherly. Her forte is certainly 
 children." 
 
 " You always find something to say for 
 her." 
 
 " I should be ashamed if I could not find 
 something to say for anybody who is always 
 abused." 
 
 Another pause — and then Selina re- 
 turned to the charge. 
 
 " Have you ever observed, my dear, the 
 extraordinary way she has of fastening, or
 
 MISTRESS AND IMAID. 65 
 
 rather not fastening, her gown behind ? 
 She just hooks it together at the top 
 and at the waist, while between there 
 is a — " 
 
 ^^ Hiatus valde deflendus. dear n^e! 
 what shall I do for quiet ! Selina, how can 
 I help it if a girl of fifteen 3^ears old is not 
 a paragon of perfection — as of course ice all 
 are — if we only could find it out ? " 
 
 And Hilary, in despair, rose to carry her 
 candle and books into the chilly but peaceful 
 bedroom, biting her lips the while lest she 
 should be tempted to say something which 
 Selina called "impertinent;" as perhaps 
 it was, from a younger sister to an elder. 
 I do not set Hilary up as a perfect cha- 
 racter. Through sorrow only do people go 
 on to perfection : and sorrow, in its true 
 meaning, this cherished girl had never 
 known. 
 
 But that night, talking to Johanna before 
 they went to sleep — they had always slept 
 together since the time when the elder 
 sister used to walk the room of nights with 
 the puling, motherless infant in her arms — 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Hilary anxiously started the question of the 
 little servant. 
 
 " I am afraid I vexed Selina greatly about 
 her to-night ; and yet what can one do ? 
 Selina is so very unjust — always expecting 
 impossibilities. She would like to have 
 Elizabeth at once a first-rate cook, a finished 
 housemaid, and an attentive lady's-maid, 
 and all without being taught ! She gives 
 her things to do, neither waiting to see if 
 they are comprehended by her, nor show- 
 ing her how to do them. Of course the 
 girl stands gaping and staring, and does 
 not do them, or does them so badly that 
 she gets a thorough scolding." 
 
 " Is she very stupid, do you think?" asked 
 Johanna, in unconscious appeal to her pet's 
 stronger judgment. 
 
 " No, I don't. Far from stupid ; only 
 very ignorant, and — you would hardly be- 
 lieve it — very nervous. Selina frightens 
 her. She gets on extremely well with me." 
 
 " Anyone would, my dear. That is," 
 added the conscientious elder sister, still 
 afraid of making the " child" vain, " anyone
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 67 
 
 with whom you took pains. But do you 
 think we ever can make anything out of 
 Ehzabeth ? Her month ends to-morrow. 
 Shall we let her go ?" 
 
 " And perhaps get in her place a story- 
 teller — a tale-bearer — even a thief. Xo, 
 no ; let us 
 
 Rather bear the ills we have, 
 Than -Qy to others that we know not of; 
 
 and a thief would be worse than even a 
 South Sea Islander." 
 
 ^' Oh, yes, my dear," said Johanna, with a 
 shiver. 
 
 " By-the-bye, the first step in the civil- 
 ization of the Polynesians was giving them 
 clothes. And I have heard say that crime 
 and rags often go together; that a man 
 unconsciously feels he owes something to 
 himself and society in the way of virtue 
 when he has a clean face and clean shirt 
 and a decent coat on. Suppose we try the 
 experiment of dressing Elizabeth ? How 
 many old gowns have we ? " 
 
 The number was few. Nothing in the 
 r 2
 
 68 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Leaf family was ever cast off till its very 
 last extremity of decay; the talent that 
 
 Gars anld claes look araaist as gude ''s the new 
 
 being especially possessed by Hilary. She 
 counted over her own wardrobe and 
 Johanna's, but found nothing that could 
 be spared. 
 
 " Yes, my love, there is one gown — your 
 brown merino. You certainly shall never 
 put on that old thing again ; though you have 
 laid it by so carefully, as if you meant it 
 to come out as fresh as ever next winter. 
 No, Hilary, you must have a new dress, 
 and you must give Elizabeth your brown 
 merino." 
 
 Hilary laughed, and replied not. 
 
 Now it might be a pathetic indication of 
 a girl who had very few clothes, but Hilary 
 had a superstitious weakness concerning 
 hers. Every dress had its own peculiar 
 chronicle of the scenes where it had been, 
 the enjoyments she had shared in it. Par- 
 ticular dresses were special memorials of her 
 loves, her pleasures, her little passing pains :
 
 3inSTRESS AND MAID. 69 
 
 as long as a bit remained of the poor old 
 fabric, the sight of it recalled, them all. 
 
 This brown merino — in which she had 
 sat two whole winters over her Greek and 
 Latin by Robert Lyon's side, which he had 
 once stopped to touch and notice, saying 
 what a pretty colour it was, and how he 
 liked soft-feelino' dresses for women — to 
 cut up this old brown merino seemed to 
 hurt her so, she could almost have cried. 
 
 Yet what would Johanna think if she 
 refused ? And there was Elizabeth abso- 
 lutely in want of clothes. " I must be grow- 
 ing very wicked," thought poor Hilary. 
 
 She lay a good while silent in the dark, 
 while Johanna planned and re-planned — 
 calculating how, even with the addition of 
 an old cape of her own, which was out of 
 the same piece, this hapless gown could be 
 made to fit the gaunt frame of Elizabeth 
 Hand. Her poor kindly brain was in the 
 last extremity of muddle, when Hilary, 
 with a desperate effort, dashed in to the 
 rescue, and soon made all clear, contriving 
 body, skirt, sleeves, and all.
 
 70 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 '' You have the best head m the world, 
 my love. I don't know whatever I should 
 do without you." 
 
 *' Luckily, you are never likely to be tried. 
 So give me a kiss ; and good night, Johanna." 
 
 Probably many will say I am writing 
 about small, ridiculously small things. Yet 
 is not the whole of life made up of infini- 
 tesimally small things? And in its strange 
 and solemn mosaic, the full pattern of which 
 we never see clearly till looking back on it 
 from far away, dare we say of anything 
 which the hand of Eternal Wisdom has put 
 together, that it is too common or too 
 small?
 
 CHAPTER lY. 
 
 While lier anxious mistresses were thus 
 talking her over, the servant lay on her 
 humble bed and slept. They knew she did, 
 for they heard her heavy breathing through 
 the thin partition-wall. Whether, as Hilary 
 suggested, she was too ignorant to notice 
 the days of the week or month, or, as Selina 
 thought, too stupid to care for anything 
 beyond eating, drinking, and sleeping, Eliza- 
 beth manifested no anxiety about herself or 
 her destiny. She went about her work just 
 as usual ; a little more quickly and readily, 
 now she was becoming familiarised to it ; but 
 she said nothing. She was undoubtedly a 
 girl of silent and undemonstrative nature. 
 
 " Sometimes still waters run deep," said 
 Miss Hilary. 
 
 " Nevertheless, there are such things as
 
 72 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 canals," replied Johanna. " When do 3^ou 
 mean to have your little talk with her ? " 
 
 Hilary did not know. She Avas sitting 
 rather more tired than usual by the school- 
 room fire, the little people having just 
 departed for their Saturday half-holiday. 
 Before clearing off the debris which they 
 always left behind, she stood a minute at 
 the window, refreshing her eyes with the 
 green field opposite, and the far-away wood, 
 crowned by a dim white monument, visible 
 in fair weather, on which those bright 
 brown eyes had a trick of lingering, even 
 in the middle of school-hours. For the 
 wood and the hill beyond belonged to a 
 nobleman's "show" estate, five miles off — 
 the only bit of real landscape beauty that 
 Hilary had ever beheld. There, during the 
 last holidays but one, she, her sisters, her 
 nephew, and by his own special request, 
 Mr. Lyon — had spent a whole, long, merry 
 midsummer day. She wondered whether 
 such a day would ever come again ! 
 
 But spring was coming again, anyhow : 
 the field looked smiling and green, dotted
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 73 
 
 here and there with white dots which, she 
 opined, might possibly be daisies. She half 
 wished she was not too old and dignified to 
 dart across the road, leap the sunk fence, 
 and run to see. 
 
 " I think, Jolianna — Hark ! what can 
 that be ?" 
 
 For at this instant somebody came tear- 
 ing down the stairs, opened the front door, 
 and did — exactly what Hilary had just 
 been w^ishinn; to do. 
 
 " It 's Elizabeth, without her bonnet or 
 shawl, wdth something wdiite flying behind 
 her. How she is dashing across the field ! 
 What can she be after ? Just look!" 
 
 But loud screams from Selina's room, the 
 front one, where she had been lying in bed 
 all morning, quite obliterated the little ser- 
 vant from their minds. The two sisters 
 ran hastily upstairs. 
 
 Selina was sitting up, in undisguised 
 terror and agitation. 
 
 " Stop her ! Hold her ! I 'm sure she has 
 gone mad. Lock the door — or she '11 come 
 back and murder us all."
 
 74 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 «' Who ? Elizabeth ? Was she here ? What 
 has been the matter ?" 
 
 But it was some time before they could 
 make out anything. At last they gathered 
 that Elizabeth had been ^yaiting upon Miss 
 Selina, putting vinegar-cloths on her head, 
 and doing various things about the room. 
 ^^ She is very handy when one is ill," even 
 Selina allowed — 
 
 *' And I assure you, I was talking most 
 kindly to her : about the duties of her posi- 
 tion, and how she ought to dress better, 
 and be more civil-behaved, or else she 
 never could expect to keep any place. And 
 she stood in her usual sulky way of listen- 
 ing, never answering a word — with her 
 back to me, staring right out of window. 
 And I had just said, ' Elizabeth, my girl ' 
 — indeed, Hilary, I was talking to her in 
 my very kindest way " — 
 
 " I Ve no doubt of it — but do get on " — 
 
 " When she suddenly turned round, 
 snatched a clean towel from a chair-back, 
 and another from my head — actually from 
 my very head, Johanna — and out she ran.
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 75 
 
 I called after her, but she took no more 
 notice than if I had been a stone. And she 
 left the door wide open — blowing upon 
 me. Oh dear I she has given me my death 
 of cold." And Selina broke into piteous 
 complainings. 
 
 Her elder sister soothed her as well as 
 she could, while Hih^ay ran down to the 
 front-door and looked everywhere for EHza- 
 beth. She was not to be seen on field or 
 road; and on making inquiries along the 
 terrace, not a neighbour had even perceived 
 her quit the house. 
 
 " It *s a very odd thing," said Hilary, 
 returning. '* What can have come over the 
 girl ? You are sure, Selina, that you s:Jd 
 nothing which " — 
 
 " Xow, I know vrhat you are going to 
 say. You are going to blame me. AVhatever 
 happens in this house, you always blame 
 me. And perhaps you 're right. Perhaps 
 I am a nuisance — a burden ; that would be 
 far better dead and buried — as I wish I 
 were ! " 
 
 When Selina took this tack, of course
 
 7G MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 lier sisters were silenced. They quieted 
 her a little, and then went dov/n and 
 searched the house all over. 
 
 All was in order ; at least in as much 
 order as was to be expected the hour before 
 dinner. The bowl of half-peeled potatoes 
 stood on the back kitchen " sink ;" the roast 
 was down before the fire ; the knives were 
 ready for cleaning. Evidently Elizabeth's 
 flight had not been premeditated. 
 
 " It 's all nonsense about her going mad. 
 She has as sound a head as I have," said 
 Hilary to Johanna, who began to look 
 seriously uneasy. " She might have run 
 away in a fit of passion, certainly ; and yet 
 that is improbable ; her temper is more sullen 
 than furious. And havinsf no lack of com- 
 mon sense, she must know that doing a 
 thing like this is enough to make her lose 
 her place at once." 
 
 " Yes," said Johanna, mournfully, " I 'm 
 afraid after this she must go." 
 
 " Wait and see what she has to say for 
 herself," pleaded Hilary. " She will surely 
 be back in two or three minutes."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 77 
 
 But she was not, nor even in two or 
 three hours. 
 
 Her mistresses' annoyance became dis- 
 pleasure, and that again subsided into 
 serious apprehension. Even Selina ceased 
 talking over and over the incident which 
 gave the sole information to be arrived at ; 
 rose, dressed, and came down to the kitchen. 
 There, after a long and anxious consultation, 
 Hilary, observing that " somebody had bet- 
 ter do something," began to prepare the 
 dinner, as in pre-Elizabethan days ; but the 
 ladies' appetites were small. 
 
 About three in the afternoon, Hilary, 
 giving utterance to the hidden alarm of all, 
 said — 
 
 " I think, sisters, I had better go down as 
 quickly as I can to Mrs. Hand's." 
 
 This agreed, she stood consulting with 
 Johanna as to what could possibly be said 
 to the mother in case that unfortunate child 
 had not gone home, when the kitchen door 
 opened, and the culprit appeared. 
 
 Not, however, Avith the least look of a 
 culprit. Hot she was, and breathless, and
 
 78 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 with her hair down about her ears, and her 
 apron rolled up round her waist, presented 
 a most forlorn and untidy aspect ; but her 
 eyes were bright and her countenance 
 glowing. 
 
 She took a towel from under her arm. 
 " There 's one on 'em — and you '11 get back 
 — the other — when it 's washed." 
 
 Having blurted out this, she leaned against 
 the wall, trying to recover her breath. 
 
 " Elizabeth ! Where have you been ? 
 How dared you to go ? Your behaviour is 
 disgraceful — most disgraceful I say. Jo- 
 hanna, why don't you speak to your 
 servant ?" (When, for remissness in reprov- 
 ing others, the elder sister fell herself under 
 Selina's reproof, it was always emphatically 
 *' your sister " — " your nephew " — " your 
 servant.") 
 
 But, for once. Miss Selina's sharp voice 
 failed to brino^ the customarv sullen look to 
 Elizabeth's face ; and when Miss Leaf, in 
 milder tones, asked where she had been, 
 she answered unhesitatingly — 
 
 " I 've been down the town."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 79 
 
 " Down the town ! " the three ladies cried, 
 in one chorus of astonishment. 
 
 ^* I 've been as quick as I could, missis. 
 I runned all the way, there and back ; but 
 it was a good step, and he was some'at 
 heavy, though he is but a little 'un." 
 
 " He! who on earth is he ?" 
 
 " Deary me ! I never thought of axing his 
 name ; but his mother lives in Hall Street. 
 Somebody saw me carrying him to the doc- 
 tor, and went and told her. Oh ! he was 
 welly killed. Miss Leaf — the doctor said so ; 
 but he '11 do now, and you '11 get your towel 
 clean washed to-morrow." 
 
 While Elizabeth spoke so incoherently, 
 and with such unwonted energy and excite- 
 ment, Johanna looked as if she thought her 
 sister's fears were true, and the girl had 
 really gone mad ; but Hilary's quicker per- 
 ceptions jumped at a different conclusion. 
 
 " Quiet yourself, Elizabeth," said she, 
 taking a firm hold of her shoulder, and mak- 
 ing her sit down, when the rolled-up apron 
 dropped, and showed itself all covered with 
 blood spots. Selina screamed outright.
 
 8,0 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Then Elizabeth seemed to become half- 
 conscious that she had done somethino* 
 blameable, or was at least a suspected 
 character. Her warmth of manner faded ; 
 the sullen cloud of dogged resistance to 
 authority was rising in her poor dirty 
 face, when Hilary, beginning with, " Now, 
 we are not going to scold you ; but we 
 must hear the reason of this," contrived 
 by adroit questions to elicit the whole 
 story. 
 
 It appeared that, while standing at Miss 
 Selina's window, Elizabeth had watched 
 three little boys, apparently engaged in a 
 very favourite amusement of little boys in 
 that field, going quickly behind a horse, 
 and pulling out the longest and handsomest 
 hairs in his tail, to make fishing-lines of. 
 She saw the animal give a kick, and two of 
 the boys run away ; the other did not stir. 
 For a minute or so she noticed the dark lump 
 lying motionless in the grass ; then, with the 
 quick instinct for which nobody had ever 
 given her credit, she guessed what had 
 happened, and did immediately the wisest
 
 ]\nSTRESS AND MAID. 81 
 
 and only thing possible under the circum- 
 stances, namely, to snatch up a towel, run 
 across the field, bind up the child's head as 
 well as she could, and carry it, bleeding 
 and insensible, to the nearest doctor, who 
 lived nearly a mile off. 
 
 She did not tell — and they only found 
 it out afterwards — how she had held the 
 boy while under the doctor's hands, the 
 skull being so badly fractured that the 
 frightened mother fainted at the sight : how 
 she had finally carried him home, and left 
 him comfortably settled in bed, his senses 
 restored, and his life saved. 
 
 " Ay, my arms do ache above a bit," she 
 said, in answer to Miss Leaf's question. 
 " He wasn't quite a baby — nigh upon 
 twelve, I reckon; but then he was very 
 small of his age. And he looked just as if 
 he was dead — and he bled so." 
 
 Here, just for a second or two, the colour 
 left the big girl's lips, and she trembled a 
 little. Miss Leaf went to the kitchen cup- 
 board, and took out their only bottle of 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 wine — administered in rare doses, exclu- 
 sively as medicine. 
 
 ''Drink this, Elizabeth ; and then go and 
 wash your face and eat your dinner. We 
 will talk to you by-and-bye." 
 
 Elizabeth looked up with a long, wistful 
 stare of intense surprise, " Have I done 
 anything wrong, missis ? " 
 
 " I did not say so. But drink this ; and 
 don't ask questions, child." 
 
 She was obeyed. Presently Elizabeth 
 disappeared into the back kitchen, emerged 
 thence with a clean face, hands, and apron, 
 and went about her afternoon business as 
 if nothing had happened. 
 
 Her mistresses' threatened " talk " with 
 her never came about. What, indeed, could 
 they say ? No doubt the little servant had 
 broken the strict letter of domestic law by 
 running off in that highly eccentric and 
 inconvenient way ; but, as Hilary tried to 
 explain by a series of most ingenious 
 reasonings, she had fulfilled, in the spirit, 
 the very highest law — that of charity. 
 She had also shown prompt courage, deci-
 
 MISTRESS AND IMAID. 83 
 
 sion, practical and prudent forethought, 
 and, above all, entire self-forgetfulness. 
 
 " And I should like to know," said Miss 
 Hilary, warming with her subject, "if those 
 are not the very qualities which go to con- 
 stitute a hero ? " 
 
 " But we don't want a hero ; we want a 
 maid- of-all- work. '^ 
 
 " I '11 tell you what we want, Selina. We 
 want a woman-, that is, a girl with the 
 making of a good woman in her. If we can 
 find that, all the rest will follow. For my part, 
 I would rather take this girl, rough as she 
 is, but with her truthfulness, conscientious- 
 ness, kindliness of heart, and evident capa- 
 bility of both self-control and self-devoted- 
 ness, than the most finished servant we could 
 find. My advice is — let us keep her." 
 
 This settled the matter, since it was a 
 curious fact that the "advice" of the young- 
 est Miss Leaf was, whether they knew it or 
 not, almost equivalent to a family ukase. 
 
 When Elizabeth had brought in the tea- 
 things, which she did with especial care, 
 apparently wishing to blot out the memory 
 
 G 2
 
 84 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 of her morning's escapade by astonishingly 
 good behaviour for the rest of the day, Miss 
 Leaf called her, and asked if she knew that 
 her month of trial ended this day ? 
 
 " Yes, ma'am," with something between 
 the formal courtesy of the old-world family 
 domestic — as her mother might have 
 been to the Miss Elizabeth Something 
 she was named after — and the abrupt 
 " dip " of the modern National school girl, 
 which constituted Elizabeth Hand's sole 
 notion of manners. 
 
 " If you had not been absent, I should 
 have gone to speak to your mother about 
 you this afternoon. Indeed, Miss Hilary 
 was going, when you came in ; but it would 
 have been with a very different intention 
 from what we had in the morning. How- 
 ever, that is not likely to happen again." 
 
 " Eh ? " said Elizabeth, inquiringly. 
 
 Miss Leaf hesitated, and looked uneasily 
 at her two sisters. It was always a trial to 
 her shy nature to find herself the mouth- 
 piece of the family ; and this same shyness 
 made it still more difficult to breakthrough
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 85 
 
 the stiff barriers which seemed to rise up 
 between her, a gentlewoman well on in 
 years, and this coarse working-girl. She 
 felt, as she often complained, that with the 
 kindest intentions she did not quite know 
 how to talk to Elizabeth. 
 
 " My sister means," said Hilary, " that as 
 we are not likely to have little boys half- 
 killed in the field every day, she trusts you 
 will not be running away again as you did 
 this morning. She feels sure that you 
 would not do a thing like this, putting us 
 all to so great annoyance and uneasiness, for 
 any less cause than such as happened to-day. 
 You promise that ?" 
 
 " Yes, Miss Hilary." 
 
 '* Then we quite forgive you as regards 
 ourselves. Kay" — feeling, in spite of 
 Selina's warning nudge, that she had hardly 
 been kind enough — ^* we rather praise than 
 blame you, Elizabeth. You acted for the 
 very best as regarded the poor little fellow. 
 And if you like to stay with us, and will 
 do your best to improve, we are willing to 
 keep you as our servant."
 
 86 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am. Thank you, Miss 
 Hilary. Yes, I '11 stop." 
 
 She said no more — but sighed a great 
 sigh, as if her mind were relieved — (" So,'* 
 thought Hilary, " she was not so indifferent 
 to us as we imagined") — and bustled back 
 into her kitchen. 
 
 " Now as to clothing her," observed 
 Miss Leaf, also looking much relieved that 
 the decision was over. " You know what 
 we agreed upon; and there is certainly no 
 time to be lost. Hilary, my dear, suppose 
 you bring down your brown merino ? " 
 
 Hilary went without a word. 
 
 People who inhabit the same house, eat, 
 sit, and sleep together — loving one another 
 and sympathising with one another, ever so 
 deeply and dearly — nevertheless must in- 
 evitably have times when the intense soli- 
 tude in which we all live, and must ever live, 
 at the depth of our being, forces itself pain- 
 fully upon the heart. Johanna could not 
 but have had many such times when Hilary 
 was a child : Hilary experienced one now. 
 
 She unfolded the old frock, and took out
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 87 
 
 of its pocket, a hiding-place at once little 
 likely to be searched, and harmless if disco- 
 vered, a poor little memento of that happy- 
 mid summer-day — 
 
 ^^ Dear Miss Hilary^ — To-morrow then I 
 shall come. Yours truly ^ 
 
 ^^ Robert Lyon^ 
 
 This was the only scrap of note she had 
 ever received from him ; he always wrote to 
 Johanna ; as regularly as ever, or more so, 
 now Ascott was gone; but still only to 
 Johanna. Hilary read over the two lines, 
 wondered where she should keep them now, 
 that Johanna might not notice them ; and 
 then recoiled, as if her poor little secret were 
 a wrong to that dear sister who loved her so 
 well. 
 
 " But nothing makes me love her less ; 
 nothing ever could. She thinks me quite 
 happy, as I hope I am ; and yet — oh, if I 
 did not miss him so ! " 
 
 And the aching, aching v/ant which 
 sometimes came over her, began again. 
 Let us not blame her. God made all our 
 human needs. God made love. Not merely
 
 88 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 affection, but actual love^ the necessity to 
 seek and find out some other being, not 
 another but the complement of one's-self — 
 the ^' other half," who brings rest and strength 
 for weakness, sympathy in aspiration, and 
 tenderness for tenderness, as no other per- 
 son ever can. Perhaps, even in marriage, 
 this love is seldom found, and it is possible 
 in all lives to do without it. Johanna had 
 done so. But then she had been young, 
 and was now growing old ; and Hilary was 
 only twenty, with a long life before her. 
 Poor child, let us not biame her ! 
 
 She was not in the least sentimental, her 
 natural disposition inclining her to be more 
 than cheerful, actually gay. She soon re- 
 covered herself, and when, a short time 
 after, she stood, scissors in hand, demon- 
 strating how very easy it was to make 
 something out of nothing, her sisters never 
 suspected how very near tears had lately 
 been to those bright ^y^^^ which were al- 
 ways the sunshine of the house. 
 
 "You are giving yourself a world of 
 trouble," said Selina. " If I were you, I
 
 MISTRESS AJND MAID. 89 
 
 would jnst make over the dress to Eliza- 
 beth, and let her do what she could with 
 it." 
 
 " 'Mj dear, I always find I give myself 
 twice the trouble by expecting people to do 
 what they can't do. I have to do it my- 
 self afterwards. Prove how a child who can't 
 even handle a needle and thread, is compe- 
 tent to make a gown for herself, and I shall 
 be most happy to secede in her favour." 
 
 " Nay," put in the eldest sister, afraid of 
 a collision of words, '' Selina is right ; if you 
 do not teach Elizabeth to make her own 
 gowns, how can she ever learn ? " 
 
 " Johanna, your arguments are most bril- 
 liant ! Besides — you know you don't like 
 the parlour littered with rags and cuttings. 
 You wish to get rid of me for the evening ? 
 Well, I '11 go ! Hand me the work-basket and 
 the bundle ; and I '11 give my first lesson in 
 dress-making to our South Sea Islander." 
 
 But Fate stood in the way of Miss 
 Hilary's good intentions. 
 
 She found Elizabeth not, as was her wont, 
 always busy over the perpetual toil of those
 
 90 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 who have not yet learned the mysterious art 
 of lessening labour by arrangement and order, 
 nor, as sometimes, hanging sleepily over the 
 kitchen fire, Avaiting for bed-time ; but 
 actually sitting — sitting down at the table. 
 Her candle was flaring on one side of her ; 
 on the other was the school-room inkstand, 
 a scrap of waste paper, and a pen. But 
 she was not writing ; she sat with her head 
 on her hands, in an attitude of disconsolate 
 idleness, so absorbed that she seemed not 
 to hear Hilary's approach. 
 
 *' I did not know you could write, Eliza- 
 beth." 
 
 " No more I can," was the answer, in the 
 most doleful of voices. " It bean't no good. 
 I 've forgotten all about it. T' letters 
 wonna join." 
 
 " Let me look at them." And Hilary 
 tried to contemplate gravely the scrawled 
 and blotted page, which looked very much 
 as if a large spider had walked into the 
 ink-bottle and then walked out again on a 
 tour of investigation. " What did you want 
 to write?" asked she, suddenly.
 
 MISTRESS AND IMAID. 91 
 
 Elizabeth blushed violently. " It was 
 the woman, Mrs. CHfFe, t' little lad's mother, 
 you know ; she wanted somebody to write 
 to her brother as is at work in Birming- 
 ham, and I said I would. I 'd learned at 
 the National, but I 've forgotten it all. 
 I 'm just what Miss Selina often says — 
 I 'm good for nowt." 
 
 " Come^ come, never fret ; " for there was 
 a sort of choke in the girl's voice. " There 's 
 many a good person who never learnt to 
 write. But I don't see why you should 
 not learn. Shall I teach you ? " 
 
 Utter amazement, beaming gratitude, 
 succeeded one another, plain as light, in 
 Elizabeth's eyes ; but she only said, " Thank 
 you, Miss Hilary." 
 
 " Yery well. I have brought you an old 
 gown of mine, and was going to show you 
 how to make it up for yourself, but I '11 
 look over your writing instead. Sit down, 
 and let me see what you can do." 
 
 In a state of nervous trepidation, pitiful 
 to behold, Elizabeth took the pen. Terri- 
 ble scratches resulted ; blots innumerable ;
 
 92 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 and one fatal deluge of ink, which startled 
 from their seats both mistress and maid, 
 and made Hilary thankful that she had 
 taken off her better gown for a common 
 one, as, with sad thriftiness, the Misses 
 Leaf always did of evenings. 
 
 When Elizabeth saw the mischief she 
 had done, her contrition and humility were 
 unbounded. " No, Miss Hilary, you can't 
 make nothin' of me. I be too stupid. I'll 
 give it up." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " And the bright, active 
 little lady looked steadily into the heavy 
 face of this undeveloped girl, half child, 
 half woman, until some of her own spirit 
 seemed to be reflected there. Whether the 
 excitement of the morning had roused her, 
 or her mistresses' kindness had touched 
 Elizabeth's heart, and — as in most women 
 — the heart was the key to the intellect ; 
 or whether the gradual daily influence of 
 her changed life during the last month had 
 been taking eflect, now for the first time 
 to appear — certain it is that Hilary had 
 never perceived before what an extremely
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 93 
 
 intelligent face it was; what good sense 
 was indicated in the well-shaped head and 
 forehead; what tenderness and feeling in 
 the deep-set grey eyes. 
 
 *' Nonsense," repeated she. " Never give 
 up anything ; I never would. We '11 try a 
 different plan, and begin from the very be- 
 ginning, as I do with ray little scholars. 
 Wait, while I fetch a copy-book out of the 
 parlour press." 
 
 She highly amused her sisters with a 
 description of what she called " her newly- 
 instituted Polynesian Academy ; " returned, 
 and set to work to guide the rough, coarse 
 hand through the mysteries of caligraphy. 
 
 To say this Avas an easy task, would not 
 be true. Nature's own laws and limits 
 make the using of faculties, which have 
 be^n unused for generations, very difficult 
 at first. To suppose that a working man, 
 the son of working men, who applies himself 
 to study, does it with as little trouble as 
 your upper-class children, who have been 
 unconsciously undergoing education ever 
 since the cradle, is a great mistake. All
 
 94 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 honour, therefore, to those who do attempt, 
 and to ever so small a degree succeed in, 
 the best and surest culture of all, self- 
 culture. 
 
 Of this honour Elizabeth deserved her 
 share. 
 
 " She is stupid enough," Hilary confessed, 
 after the lesson was over ; " but there is a 
 dogged perseverance about the girl which 
 I actually admire. She blots her fingers, 
 her nose, her apron, but she never gives in ; 
 and she sticks to the grand principle of one 
 thing at a time. I think she did two whole 
 pages of a's, and really performed them 
 satisfactorily, before she asked to go on to 
 b's. Yes ! I believe she will do." 
 
 " I hope she will do her work, at any 
 rate," said Selina, breaking into the conver- 
 sation rather crossly. '^I'm sure I don't 
 see the good of wasting time over teaching 
 Elizabeth to write, when there 's so much 
 to be done in the house by one and all of 
 us, from Monday morning till Saturday 
 night." 
 
 " Ay, that 's it," answered Hilary, medi-
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 95 
 
 tatively. " I don't see how I ever shall get 
 time to teach her, and she is so tired of nights 
 when the work is all done ; she '11 be dropping 
 asleep with the pen in her hand — I have 
 done it myself before now." 
 
 Ay, that was in those days when, trying 
 hard to improve her mind, so as to make her- 
 self a little more equal and companionable to 
 another mind she knew, she had, after her 
 daily house cares and her six hours of 
 school-teaching, attempted at nine p.m. to 
 begin close study on her own account. 
 And though with her strong will she suc- 
 ceeded tolerably, still, as she told Johanna, 
 she could well understand how slow was 
 the " march of intellect " (a phrase which 
 had just then come up) among day- 
 labourers and the like ; and how difficult it 
 was for these Mechanics' Institutions, which 
 were now talked so much of, to put any new 
 ideas into the poor tired heads, rendered 
 sluggish and stupid with hard bodily 
 labour. 
 
 " I wish I could hold my Polynesian 
 Academy on a rest day — on Sunday for
 
 96 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 instance ? " and she looked inquiringly at 
 her sisters, especially Johanna. 
 
 Now the Misses Leaf were old-fashioned 
 country folk, who lived before the words 
 Sabbatarian and un- Sabbatarian had ever 
 got into the English language. They 
 simply " remembered the Sabbath-day to 
 keep it holy; " they arranged so as to make 
 it for all the household a day of rest ; and 
 they went regularly to church once 
 — sometimes Selina and Hilary went 
 twice. For the intervening hours, their 
 usual custom was to take an afternoon 
 walk in the fields : begun chiefly for 
 Ascott's sake, to keep the lad out of 
 mischief, and put into his mind better 
 thoughts than he was likely to get from 
 his favourite Sunday recreation of sitting 
 on the wall throwing stones. After he 
 left for London, there was Elizabeth to be 
 thought of; and they decided that the best 
 Sabbath duty for the little servant was to 
 go and see her mother. So they gave her 
 every Sunday afternoon free; only re- 
 quiring that she should be at home
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 97 
 
 punctually after church-time, at eight 
 o'clock. But from thence till bed-time 
 was a blank two hours, which, Hilary had 
 noticed, Elizabeth not unfrequently spent 
 in dozing over the fire. 
 
 " And I wonder," said she, giving the end 
 of her long meditation out loud, " whether 
 going to sleep is not as much Sabbath- 
 breaking as learning to write ? AVhat do 
 you say, Johanna?" 
 
 Johanna, simple. God-fearing woman as 
 she was, to whom faith and love came as 
 natural as the breath she drew, had never 
 perplexed herself with the question. She 
 only smiled acquiescence. But Selina was 
 greatly shocked. Teaching to write on a 
 Sunday! Bringing the week-day work 
 into the day of rest ! Doing one's own 
 pleasure on the holy day! She thought 
 it exceedingly wrong. Such a thing had 
 never been heard of in their house. 
 Whatever else might be said of them, the 
 Leafs were always a respectable famil}^ as 
 to keeping Sunday. Nobody could say that 
 even poor Henry — 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 But liere Selina's torrent of words stopped. 
 
 When conversation revived, Hilary, who 
 had been at first half annoyed and half 
 amused, returned seriously to her point. 
 
 " I might say that writing is n' t Elizabeth's 
 week-day work, and that teaching her is not 
 exactly doing my own pleasure ; but I won't 
 creep out of the argument by a quibble. 
 The question is. What is keeping the 
 Sabbath-day ^holy?' I say — and I stick 
 to my opinion — that it is by making it 
 a day of worship — a rest day — -a cheerful 
 and happy day — and by doing so much 
 2:ood in it as we can. And therefore I mean 
 to teach Elizabeth to write on a Sunday." 
 
 " She '11 never uncjerstand it. She '11 con- 
 sider it work." 
 
 " And if she did, work is a more religious 
 thino; than idleness. I am sure I often feel 
 that, of the two, I should be less sinful in 
 digging potatoes in my garden, or sitting 
 mending stockings in my parlour, than in 
 keeping Sunday as some people do — going 
 to church genteelly in my best clothes, 
 eating a huge Sunday dinner, and then
 
 MISTRESS AND IMAID. 99 
 
 nodding over a good book, or taking a 
 regular Sunday nap, till bed-time." 
 
 "■ Hush, child," said Johanna, reprovingly ; 
 for Hilary's cheeks were red, and her voice 
 angry. She was taking the hot youthful 
 part, which, in its hatred of shams and 
 forms, sometimes leads — and not seldom 
 led poor Hilary — a little too far on the 
 other side. " I think," Miss Leaf added, 
 " that our business is with ourselves, and 
 not with our neighbours. Let us keep the 
 Sabbath according to our consciences. Only, 
 I would take care never to do anything 
 which jarred against my neighbour's feel- 
 ings. I would, like Paul, ' eat no meat 
 while the world standeth,' rather than 
 ' make my brother to offend.' " 
 
 Hilary looked into her sister's sweet, 
 calm face, and the indignation died out of 
 her own. 
 
 "Shall I give up my academy?" she 
 said, softly. 
 
 " No, my love. It is lawful to do good 
 on the Sabbath-day, and teaching a poor 
 ignorant girl to write is an absolute good. 
 
 H 2
 
 100 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Make lier understand that, and you need 
 not be afraid of any harm ensuing." 
 
 " You never will make her understand," 
 said Selina, sullenly. " She is only a 
 servant." 
 
 " Nevertheless, I '11 try." 
 
 Hilary could not tell how far she suc- 
 ceeded in simplifying to the young servant's 
 comprehension this great question, involv- 
 ing so many points — which, as she spoke, 
 seemed opening out before her so widely 
 and awfully, that she herself involuntarily 
 shrank from it, and wondered that poor 
 finite creatures should ever presume to 
 squabble about it at all. 
 
 But one thing the girl did understand — 
 her young mistress's kindness. She stood 
 w^atching the little delicate hand that had 
 so patiently guided hers, and now wrote 
 copy after copy for her future benefit. At 
 last she said — 
 
 *' You 're taking a deal o' trouble wi' a 
 poor wench, and it 's very kind in a lady 
 like you." 
 
 Miss Hilary was puzzled what answer
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 101 
 
 to make. True enough, it was "kind," 
 and she was " a lady ; " and between her 
 and Mrs. Hand's rough daughter was an 
 unmistakable difference and disthiction. 
 That Elizabeth perceived it, was proved by 
 her growing respectfulness of manner — the 
 more respectful, it seemed, the more she 
 herself improved. Yet Hilary could not 
 bear to make her feel more sharply than 
 was unavoidable the great gulf that lies 
 and ever must lie — not so much between 
 mistress and servant, in their abstract 
 relation — (and yet that is right, for the 
 relation and authority is ordained of God) 
 — but between the educated, and the 
 ignorant, the coarse and the refined. 
 
 " Well," she said, after a pause of con- 
 sideration, "you always have it in your 
 power to repay my ^kindness' as you call 
 it. The cleverer you become, the more 
 useful you will be to me ; and the more 
 good you grow, the better I shall like you." 
 
 Elizabeth smiled — that wonderfully 
 bright, sudden smile which seemed to cover 
 over all her plainness of feature.
 
 102 MISTRESS AND ]\IAID. 
 
 *' Once upon a time," Hilary resumed, 
 " when England was very different from 
 what it is now, English ladies used to 
 have what they call ' bower- women/ whom 
 they took as girls, and brought up in their 
 service ; teaching them all sorts of things — 
 cooking, sewing, spinning, singing, and, 
 probably, except that the ladies of that 
 time were very ill-educated themselves, to 
 read and write also. They used to spend 
 part of every day among their bower- 
 women ; and as people can only enjoy 
 the company of those with whom they have 
 some sympathies in common, we must 
 conclude that — '^ 
 
 Here Hilary stopped, recollecting she 
 must be discoursing miles above the head 
 of her little bower-maiden, and that, 
 perhaps, after all, her theory would be best 
 kept to herself, and only demonstrated 
 practically. 
 
 " So, Elizabeth, if I spend a little of my 
 time in teaching you, you must grow up 
 my faithful and attached bower-maiden ? " 
 '* I '11 grow up anything. Miss Hilary, if
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 103 
 
 it 's to please you," was the answer, given 
 with a smothered intensity that quite 
 startled the young mistress. 
 
 " I do believe the girl is getting fond of 
 me," said she, half touched, half laughing, 
 to Johanna. " If so, we shall get on. It 
 is just as with our school-children, you 
 know. We have to seize hold of their 
 hearts first, and their heads afterwards. 
 !N^ow Elizabeth's head may be uncommonly 
 tough, but I do believe she likes me." 
 
 Johanna smiled ; but she would not for 
 the world have said — never encouraging 
 the smallest vanity in her child — that she 
 did not think this circumstance so very 
 remarkable.
 
 104 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A HOUSEHOLD exclusively composed of 
 women has its advantages and its disadvan- 
 tages. It is apt to become somewhat narrow 
 in judgment, morbid in feeling, absorbed 
 in petty interests, and bounding its vision 
 of outside things to the small horizon 
 which it sees from its own fireside. But, 
 on the other hand, by this fireside often 
 abides a settled peace and purity, a long- 
 suffering, generous forbearance, and an 
 enduring affectionateness, which the other 
 sex can hardly comprehend or credit. Men 
 will not believe what is nevertheless the 
 truth, that we can ''stand alone" much 
 better than they can : that we can do 
 without them far easier, and with less 
 deterioration of character, than they can do 
 without us ; that we are better able to pro-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 105 
 
 vide for ourselves interests, duties, and 
 pleasures ; in , short, strange as it may 
 appear, that we have more real self- 
 sustaining independence than they. 
 
 Of course, that the true life, the highest 
 life, is that of man and woman united, no 
 one will be insane enough to deny ; I am 
 speaking of the substitute for it, which 
 we have so often to fall back upon, and 
 make the best of; a better best very 
 frequently than what appears best in 
 the eyes of the world. In truth, many a 
 troubled, care-ridden, wealthy family, torn 
 with dissensions, or frozen up in splendid 
 formalities, might have envied that quiet, 
 humble, maiden household of the Misses 
 Leaf, where their only trial was poverty, 
 and their only grief the one which they 
 knew the worst of, and had met patiently 
 for many a year — poor SeHna's " way." 
 
 I doubt not it was good for Elizabeth 
 Hand that her first place — the home in 
 which she received her first impressions — 
 should have been this feminine establish- 
 ment, simple and regular, in which neither
 
 106 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 waste nor disorder was allowed. Good, too, 
 that while her mistresses' narrow means 
 restricted her in many things enjoyed by 
 servants in richer families, their interests, 
 equally narrow, caused to be concentrated 
 upon herself a double measure of thought 
 and care. She became really " one of the 
 family;" a sharer in all its concerns. From 
 its small and few carnal luxuries, such as 
 the cake, fruit, or pot of preserve — votive 
 offerings from pupils' parents — up to the 
 newspaper and the borrowed book, nothing 
 was either literally or metaphorically 
 " locked up " from Elizabeth. 
 
 This grand question of locking-up had 
 been discussed in full conclave the day 
 after her month of probation ended ; the 
 sisters taking opposite sides, as might have 
 been expected. Selina was for the imme- 
 diate introduction of a locksmith and a key- 
 basket. 
 
 " While she was only on trial, it did not 
 so much signify ; besides, if it did, we have 
 only buttons on the press-doors ; but now 
 she is our regular servant, we ought to
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 107 
 
 institute a regular system of authority. 
 How can she respect a family that never 
 locks up anything?" 
 
 " How can we respect a servant from 
 whom we lock up everything ?" 
 
 " Eespect a servant ! AYhat do you mean, 
 Hilary?" 
 
 *' I mean, that if I did not respect a 
 servant, I would be very sorry to keep her 
 one day in any house of mine." 
 
 '" Wait till you Ve a house of your own 
 to keep, Miss," said Selina, crossly. " I 
 never heard such nonsense. Is that the 
 way you mean to behave to Elizabeth ? 
 Leave everything open to her — clothes,books, 
 money ; trust her with all your secrets ; 
 treat her as your most particular friend ?" 
 
 " A girl of fifteen would be rather an in- 
 convenient particular friend ! and I have 
 happily few secrets to trust her with. But 
 if I could not trust her with our coffee, tea, 
 sugar, and so on, and bring her up from 
 the very first in the habit of being trusted, 
 I would recommend her being sent away 
 to-morrow."
 
 108 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Very fine talking ; and what do you 
 say, Johanna ? — if that is not an unneces- 
 sary question, after Hilary has given her 
 opinion." 
 
 "I think," replied the elder sister, taking 
 no notice of the long familiar inuendo, " that 
 in this case Hilary is right. How people 
 ought to manage in great houses, I cannot 
 say ; but in our small house it will be easier 
 and better not to alter our simple ways. 
 Trusting the girl — if she is a good girl- 
 will only make her the more trustworthy ; 
 if she is bad, we shall the sooner find it out, 
 and let her go." 
 
 But Elizabeth did not go. A year 
 passed ; two years ; her wages were raised, 
 and with them her domestic position. From 
 a " girl " she was converted into a regular 
 servant ; her pinafores gave place to 
 grown-up gowns and aprons, and her rough 
 head, at Miss Selina's incessant instance, 
 was concealed by a cap — caps being con- 
 sidered by that lady as the proper and 
 indispensable badge of servanthood. 
 
 To say that during her transition state,
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 109 
 
 or even now that she had reached the cap 
 era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses no trou- 
 ble, would be stating a self-evident improba- 
 bility. What young lass under seventeen, 
 of any rank, does not cause plenty of 
 trouble to her natural guardians ? Who 
 can '^ put an old head on young shoulders ?" 
 or expect from girls at the most unformed 
 and unsatisfactory period of life that com- 
 plete moral and mental discipline, that 
 unfailing self-control, that perfection of 
 temper, and everything else — which, of 
 course, all mistresses always have ? 
 
 I am obli2:ed to confess that Elizabeth 
 had a few — nay, not a few — most obsti- 
 nate faults ; that no child tries its parents, 
 no pupil its school-teachers, more than she 
 tried her three mistresses at intervals. She 
 was often thoughtless and careless, brusque 
 in her manner, slovenly in her dress ; some- 
 times she was downright ''bad," filled full — 
 as some of her elders and betters are, at all 
 ages — with absolute " naughtiness ; " when 
 she would sulk for hours and days together, 
 and make the whole family uncomfortable.
 
 110 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 as many a servant can make many a family, 
 small as that of the Misses Leaf. 
 
 But still they never lost what Hilary 
 termed their " respect'^ for Elizabeth ; they 
 never found her out in a lie, a meanness, or 
 an act of deception or dishonesty. They 
 took her faults as we must take the surface- 
 faults of all connected with us — patiently 
 rather than resentfully, seeking to correct 
 rather than to punish. And though there 
 were difficult elements in the household, 
 such as there being three mistresses to be 
 obeyed, the youngest mistress a thought 
 too lax, and the second one undoubtedly 
 too severe, still no girl could live with these 
 high - principled, much - enduring women, 
 without being impressed with two things, 
 which the serving class are slowest to 
 understand — the dignity of honest poverty, 
 and the beauty of that which is the only 
 effectual law to bring out good and 
 restrain evil — the law of lovingkindness. 
 
 Two fracas, however, must be chronicled, 
 for after both the girl's dismissal hung on 
 a thread. The first was when Mrs. Cliffe,
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. Ill 
 
 mother of Tommy Cliffe, who was nearly 
 killed in the field, being discovered to be 
 an ill sort of woman, and in the habit of 
 borrowing from Elizabeth stray shillings, 
 which were never returned, was forbidden 
 the house ; Elizabeth resented it so fiercely 
 that she sulked for a whole week after- 
 wards. 
 
 The other and still more dangerous crisis 
 in Ehzabeth's destiny was when a volume 
 of Scott's novels, having been missing for 
 some days, was found hidden in her bed ; 
 and she, lying awake reading it, was thus 
 ignominiously discovered at eleven p.m. by 
 Miss Selina, in consequence of the gleam of 
 candle-light from under her door. 
 
 It was true, neither of these errors was an 
 actual moral crime. Hilary even roused a 
 volley of sharp words upon herself, by de- 
 claring they had their source in actual vir- 
 tues ; that a girl who would stint herself of 
 shillings, and hold resolutely to any liking 
 she had, even if unworthy, had a creditable 
 amount of both self-denial and fidelity in 
 her disposition. Also, that a tired-out
 
 112 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 maid- of-all- work, who was kept awake of 
 nights by her ardent appreciation of the 
 " Heart of Mid-Lothian," must possess a 
 degree of both intellectual and moral capa- 
 city which deserved cultivation rather than 
 blame. And though this surreptitious pur- 
 suit of literature under difficulties could 
 not of course be allowed, I grieve to say 
 that Miss Hilary took every opportunity of 
 not only giving the young servant books to 
 read, but of talking to her about them. 
 And also that a large proportion of these 
 books were — to Miss Selina's unmitigated 
 horror — absolutely fiction! stories, novels, 
 even poetry — books that Hilary liked her- 
 self — books that had built up in her her 
 own passionate dream of life ; wherein all 
 the women were faithful, tender, heroic, 
 self-devoted ; and all the men were — some- 
 thing not unlike Robert Lyon. 
 
 Did she do harm? Was it, as Selina and 
 even Johanna said sometimes, " dangerous " 
 thus to put before Elizabeth a standard of 
 ideal perfection, a Quixotic notion of life — 
 life in its full purpose, power, and beauty
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. llo 
 
 — such as otherwise never could have 
 crossed the mind of this poor working girl, 
 born of parents who, though respectable 
 and worthy, were in no respect higher than 
 the common working class ? I will not 
 argue the point : I am not making Eliza- 
 beth a text for a sermon ; I am simply 
 writing her story. 
 
 One thing was certain, that by degrees 
 the young woman's faults lessened ; even 
 that worst of them, the unmistakable bad 
 temper, not aggressive, but obstinately sul- 
 len, which made her and Miss Selina some- 
 times not on speaking terms for a week 
 together. But she simply " sulked ; " she 
 never grumbled or was pert ; and she did 
 her work just as usual — v/ith a kind of 
 dogged struggle not only against the supe- 
 rior powers, but against something within 
 herself, much harder to fight with. 
 
 ^' She makes me feel more sorry for her 
 than angry with her," Miss Leaf would 
 sometimes say coming out of the kitchen 
 with that grieved face which was the chief 
 sign of displeasure her sweet nature ever 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 betrayed. " She will have up-hill work 
 through life, like us all, and more than 
 many of us, poor child ! " 
 
 But gradually Elizabeth, too, copying in- 
 voluntarily the rest of the family, learned 
 to put up with Miss Selina ; who, on her 
 part, kept a sort of armed neutrality. And 
 once, when a short but sharp illness of 
 Johanna's shook the household from its 
 even tenor, startled everybody out of their 
 little tempers, and made them cling together 
 and work together in a sort of fear-stricken 
 union against one common grief, Selina 
 allowed that they might have gone farther 
 and fared worse, on the day they engaged 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 After this illness of his aunt, Ascott came 
 home. It was his first visit since he had 
 gone to London; Mr. Ascott, he said, ob- 
 jected to holidays. But now, from some 
 unexplained feeling, Johanna in her conva- 
 lescence longed after the boy — no longer a 
 boy, however, but nearly twenty, and look- 
 ing fully his age. How proud his aunts 
 were to march him up the town, and hear
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 115 
 
 everybody's congratulations on his good 
 looks and polished manners ! It was the 
 old story — old as the hills ! I do not pre- 
 tend to invent anything new. Women, 
 especially maiden aunts, will repeat the 
 tale to the end of time, so long as they have 
 youths belonging to them on whom to ex- 
 pend their natural tendency to clinging 
 fondness, and ignorant, innocent hero-wor- 
 ship. The Misses Leaf, ay, even Selina, 
 whose irritation against the provoking boy 
 was quite mollified by the elegant young- 
 man, were no wiser than their neighbours. 
 But there was one person in the house- 
 hold who still obstinately refused to bow 
 the knee to Ascott. Whether it was, as 
 psychologists might explain, some instinct- 
 ive polarity in their natures ; or whether, 
 having once conceived a prejudice, Eliza- 
 beth held on to it like grim death ; still 
 there was the same unspoken antagonism 
 between them. The young fellow took 
 little notice of her, except to observe, " that 
 she hadn't grown any handsomer;" but 
 Elizabeth watched him with a keen severity 
 
 I 2
 
 116 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 that overlooked nothing, and resisted, with a 
 passive pertinacity that was quite uncon- 
 querable, all his encroachments on the 
 family habits, all the little self-pleasing 
 ways which Ascott had been so long used 
 to, that neither he nor his aunts apparently 
 recognised them as selfish. 
 
 *' I canna bear to see him " ("ca/z720^," 
 suggested her mistress, who, seeing no 
 reason why Elizabeth should not speak the 
 Queen's English as correctly as herself, had 
 insisted upon A's, and stopped a few more 
 glaring provincialisms), '• I cannot bear to 
 see him, Miss Hilary, lolling on the arm- 
 chair, when Missis looks so tired and pale. 
 And why should he sit up o' nights, burn- 
 ing double fires, and going upstairs at last 
 with his boots on, waking everybody ? I 
 dunnot like it, I say." 
 
 " You forget ; Mr. Ascott has his studies. 
 He must work for his next examination." 
 
 " Why doesn't he get up of a morning, 
 then, instead of lying in bed, and keeping 
 the breakfast about till ten o'clock ? Why 
 can't he do his learning by daylight ? Day-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 117 
 
 light's cheaper than mould candles, and a 
 deal better for the eyes." 
 
 Hilary was puzzled. A truth was a 
 truth, and to try and make it out other- 
 wise, even for the dignity of the family, 
 was something from which her honest 
 nature revolted. Besides, the sharp-sighted 
 servant would be the first to detect the 
 inconsistency of one law of right for the 
 parlour and another for the kitchen. So 
 she took refuge in silence, and in the apple- 
 pudding she was making. 
 
 But she resolved to seize the first oppor- 
 tunity of giving Ascott, by way of novelty, 
 the severest lecture that ton2:ue of aunt 
 could bestow. And this chance occurred 
 the same afternoon, when the other two 
 aunts had gone out to tea, to a house which 
 Ascott voted " slow," and declined visiting. 
 She remained to make tea for him, and in 
 the meantime took him for a constitutional 
 up and down the public walks hard by. 
 
 Ascott listened at first very good-hu- 
 mouredly ; once or twice calling her "a dear 
 little prig," in his patronising way — he was
 
 118 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 rather fond of patronising his aunt Hilary. 
 But when she seriously spoke of his duties, 
 as no longer a boy but a man, who ought 
 now to assume the true manly right of 
 thinking for, and taking care of, other 
 people, especially his aunts, Ascott began 
 to flush up angrily. 
 
 " Now, stop that. Aunt Hilary ; I '11 not 
 have you coming Mr. Lyon over me." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 For of late Ascott had said very little 
 about Mr. Lyon — not half so much as Mr. 
 Lyon, in his steadily persistent letters to 
 Miss Leaf, told her about her nephew 
 Ascott. 
 
 " I mean, that I '11 not be preached to 
 like that by a woman. It 's bad enough to 
 have to stand it from a man ; but then 
 Lyon 's a real sharp fellow, who knows the 
 world, which w^omen don't, Aunt Hilary. 
 Besides, he coaches me in my Latin and 
 Greek ; so I let him pitch into me now and 
 then. But I won't let you ; so just stop it, 
 Avill you." 
 
 Something new in Ascott's tone — in-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 119 
 
 dicating the resentful fierceness of the man 
 rather than the pettishness of the boy, 
 frightened his little aunt, and silenced her. 
 However, she took comfort from the re- 
 flection that, as the lad had in his anger 
 betrayed, he had beside him in London a mo- 
 nitor whose preaching, she felt sure, vrould 
 be much wiser and more efi*ectual than her 
 own. So she determined to say no more. 
 
 The rare mention of Mr. Lyon's name — 
 for, time and absence having produced their 
 natural effect, except when his letters came, 
 he was now seldom talked about in the 
 house — set Hilary thinking. 
 
 " Do you go to see him often ? '' she said 
 at last. 
 
 " Who ? — Mr. Lyon ? " And Ascott, de- 
 lighted to escape into a fresh subject, be- 
 came quite cheerful and communicative. 
 "Oh, bless you! he wouldn't like my 
 going to him. He lives in a two-pair back, 
 only one room, 'which serves him for 
 kitchen and parlour and all ; ' dines at a 
 cook-shop for ninepence a day, and makes 
 his own porridge night and morning. He
 
 120 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 told me so once, for he isn't a bit ashamed 
 of it. But he must be precious hard-up 
 sometimes. However, as he contrives to 
 keep a decent coat on his back, and pay his 
 classes at the University, and carry off the 
 very best honours going there, nobody asks 
 any questions. That's the good of London, 
 Aunt Hilary," said the young fellow, 
 drawing himself up with great wisdom. 
 " Only look like a gentleman, behave 
 yourself as such, and nobody asks any 
 questions about you." 
 
 " Yes," acquiesced vaguely Aunt Hilary. 
 And then her mind wandered yearningly to 
 the solitary student in the two-pair back. 
 He might labour and suffer ; he might be 
 ill ; he might die — equally solitary, and 
 " nobody would ask any questions." This 
 phase of London life let a new light in upon 
 her. Mr. Lyon's letters to Johanna had 
 been chiefly filled with whatever he 
 thou2:ht would interest her. With his 
 characteristic Scotch reserve, he had 
 said very little about himself, except in 
 the last, wherein he mentioned that he
 
 MISTRESS AI?D MAID. 121 
 
 had " done pretty well " at college this 
 term, and meant to " ' go in for more work ' 
 immediately." 
 
 What this work entailed — how much 
 more toil — how much more poverty — 
 Hilary knew not. Perhaps even his suc- 
 cesses, which Ascott went on to talk of, 
 had less place in her thoughts than the 
 picture of the face she knew so well, 
 sharpened by illness, wasted with hard work 
 and solitary care. 
 
 " And I cannot help him — I cannot help 
 him ! " was her bitter cry ; until, passing 
 from the dreamland of fancy, the womanly 
 home-loving nature asserted itself. She 
 thought, if it were to be her blessed lot 
 to be chosen by Kobert Lyon, how she 
 would take care of him! what an utter 
 slave she would be to him! How no 
 penury would frighten her, no household 
 cares oppress or humble her, if done for 
 him and for his comfort. To her brave 
 heart no battle of life seemed too long or 
 too sore, if only it were fought for him and 
 at his side. And as the early-falling leaves
 
 122 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 were blown in gusts across her path, and 
 the misty autumn night began to close in, 
 Nature herself seemed to plead in unison 
 with the craving of her heart, which sighed 
 that youth and summer last not always; 
 and that, " be it ever so humble," as the 
 song says, there is no place so bright and 
 beautiful as the fireside of a married 
 home. 
 
 While the aunt and nephew were stroll- 
 ing thus, thinking of very different things, 
 their own fire, newly lit — Ascott liked a 
 fire — was blazing away in solitary glory, 
 for the benefit of all passers-by. At length 
 one — a gentleman — stopped at the gate, 
 and looked in, then took a turn to the end 
 of the terrace, and stood gazing in once 
 more. Something apparently troubled him, 
 and made him hesitate ; twice his hand 
 was on the latch before he opened it, and 
 knocked at the front- door. 
 
 Elizabeth appeared, and stared hard at 
 the stranger. 
 
 " Is Miss Leaf at home ? " 
 
 " No, sir."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 123 
 
 " Is she well ? Are all the family well ? " 
 and he stepped right into the passage, with 
 the freedom of a familiar foot. 
 
 ("I should ha' slammed the door in his 
 face," was Elizabeth's comment afterwards, 
 '^ only, you see, Miss Hilary, he looked a real 
 gentleman.") 
 
 The gentleman and she mutually ex- 
 amined one another. 
 
 " I think I have heard of you," said he, 
 smiling. " You are Miss Leafs servant — 
 Elizabeth Hand." 
 
 " Yes, sir," still grimly, and with a deter- 
 mined grasp of the door-handle. 
 
 " If your mistresses are likely to be home 
 soon, will you allow me to wait for them ? 
 I am an old friend of theirs. My name is 
 Lyon." 
 
 Xow Elizabeth was far too much one of 
 the family not to have heard of such a per- 
 son. And his knowing her name too was a 
 tolerable proof of his identity ; besides, un- 
 consciously, the girl was influenced by that^ 
 look and mien of true gentlemanhood, as 
 courteous to the poor maid- of- all- work as
 
 124 MISTRESS AND JIAID. 
 
 he would have been to any duchess born ; 
 and by that bright, sudden smile which 
 came like sunshine over his face, and like 
 sunshine warmed and opened the heart of 
 ever^^one who met it. 
 
 It opened that of Elizabeth. She relaxed 
 her Cerberus keeping of the door, and even 
 went so far as to inform him that Miss 
 Leaf and Miss Selina were out to tea, and 
 Miss Hilary and Mr. Ascott, gone a walk, 
 would be at home shortly. He was welcome 
 to wait in the parlour if he liked. 
 
 Afterwards, seized with mingled curiosity 
 and misgiving, she made various errands 
 to go in and look at him ; but she had not 
 courage to address him, and he never spoke 
 to her. He sat by the window, gazing 
 out into the gloaming. Except just turn- 
 ing his head at her entrance, she did 
 not think he had once stirred the whole 
 time. 
 
 Elizabeth returned to her kitchen, 
 gind stood listening for her young mis- 
 tress's familiar knock. Mr. Lyon seemed 
 to have listened too, for before she
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 125 
 
 could reach it, the door was ah'eady 
 opened by him. 
 
 There was a warm o^reetino; — to Eliza- 
 Leth's great relief; for she knev/ she had 
 broken the domestic laws in admitting a 
 stranger unawares — and then she heard 
 them all three go into the parlour, where 
 they remained talking, without ringing for 
 either tea or candles, a full quarter of 
 an hour. 
 
 Miss Hilary at last came out, but mucli 
 to Elizabeth's surprise, went straight up 
 into her bed-room, without entering the 
 kitchen at all. 
 
 It was some minutes more before she 
 descended; and then, after giving her 
 orders for tea, and seeing that all was 
 arranged with special neatness, she stood 
 absently by the kitchen fire. Elizabeth 
 noticed how wonderfully bright her eyes 
 were, and what a soft happy smile she had. 
 She noticed it, because she had never seen 
 Miss Hilary look exactly like that before ; 
 and she never did again. 
 
 " Don't you be troubling yourself with
 
 126 MISTKESS AND MAID. . 
 
 waiting about here," she said ; and her 
 mistress seemed to start at being spoken to. 
 " I '11 get the tea all right, Miss Hilary. 
 Please go back into the parlour." 
 
 Hilary made no answer, but went in.
 
 127 
 
 CHAPTER YL 
 
 Elizabeth got tea ready with unwonted dili- 
 gence, and considerable mental excitement. 
 Any visitor was a rare occurrence in this 
 very quiet family : but a gentleman visitor 
 — a young gentleman too — was a remark- 
 able fact, arousing both interest and 
 curiosity. For in the latter quality this 
 girl of seventeen could scarcely be ex- 
 pected to be deficient — and as to the 
 former, she had so completely identified 
 herself with the family she served, that all 
 their concerns were her concerns also. 
 Her acute comments on their few guests, 
 and on their little scholars, sometimes 
 amused Hilary as much as her criticisms on 
 the books she read. But as neither were 
 ever put forward intrusively or imperti- 
 nently, she let them pass, and only laughed 
 over them with Johanna in private.
 
 128 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 In speaking of these said books, and the 
 questions they led to, it was not likely but 
 that mistress and maid — one aged twenty- 
 two, and the other seventeen — should oc- 
 casionally light upon a subject rather 
 interesting to women of their ages, though 
 not commonly discussed between mistresses 
 and maids. ISTevertheless, when it did come 
 in the way, Miss Hilary never shirked it, 
 but talked it out, frankly and freely, to 
 Elizabeth as she would to any other person. 
 
 '' The girl has feelings and notions on the 
 matter, like all other girls, I suppose," 
 reasoned she to herself: "so it is important 
 that her notions should be kept clear, and 
 her feelings right. It may do her some 
 good, and save her from much harm." 
 
 And so it befell that Elizabeth Hand, 
 whose blunt ways, unlovely person, and 
 temperament so oddly nervous and reserved, 
 kept her from attracting any " sweetheart " 
 of her own class, had unconsciously imbibed 
 her mistress's theory of love. Love, pure 
 and simple, the very deepest and highest, 
 sweetest and most solemn thing in life : to
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 129 
 
 be believed in devoutly until it came, and 
 when it did come, to be held to, firmly, 
 faithfully, with a single-minded, settled con- 
 stancy, till death. A creed quite impossible, 
 many will say, in this ordinary world, and 
 most dangerous to be put into the head of 
 a Door servant. Yet a woman is but a 
 woman, be she maid-servant or queen ; and 
 if, from queens to maid- servants, girls were 
 taught thus to think of love, there might be 
 a few more " broken " hearts perhaps, but 
 there would certainly be fewer wicked 
 hearts ; — far fewer corrupted lives of men, 
 and degraded lives of women; far fewer 
 unlioly marriages, and desolated, dreary, 
 homeless homes. 
 
 Elizabeth, having cleared away her tea- 
 things, stood listening to the voices in the 
 parlour, and pondering. 
 
 She had som.etimes wondered in her own 
 mind that no knight ever came to carry off 
 her charming princess — her admired and 
 beloved Miss Hilary. Miss Hilary, on her 
 part, seemed totally indifferent to the youth 
 at Stowbury ; who indeed were, Elizabeth 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 allowed, quite unworthy her regard. The 
 only suitable lover for her young mistress 
 must be somebody exceedingly grand and 
 noble — a compound of the best heroes of 
 Shakspere, Scott, Fenimore Cooper, Maria 
 Edge worth, and Harriet Martineau. When 
 this strange gentleman appeared — in ordi- 
 nary coat and hat, or rather Glengarry 
 bonnet, neither particularly handsome nor 
 particularly tall ; yet whose coming had 
 evidently given Miss Hilary so much plea- 
 sure, and who, once or twice while waiting 
 at tea, Elizabeth fancied she had seen looking 
 at Miss Hilary as nobody ever looked before, 
 — when Mr. Robert Lyon appeared on the 
 scene, the faithful *' bower-maiden" was a 
 good deal disappointed. 
 
 She had expected somebody better ; at 
 all events, somebody different. Her first 
 brilliant castle in the air fell, poor lass ! but 
 she quickly built it up again, and, with the 
 vivid imagination of her age, she mapped out 
 the whole future, ending by a vision of Miss 
 Hilary, all in bridal white, sweeping down 
 the Terrace in a carriage and pair — to for-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 131 
 
 tune and happiness ; leaving herself, though 
 Avith a sore want at her heart, and a great 
 longmg to follow, to devote the remainder 
 of her natural life to the service of Miss 
 Johanna. 
 
 " Missis couldna do without somebody to 
 see to her — and Miss Selina do worrit her 
 so," muttered Elizabeth, in the excitement 
 of this Alnaschar vision relapsing into her 
 old provincialisms. " So, even if Miss Hilary 
 axes me to come with her, I '11 stop here, 
 I reckon. Ay, I '11 stop wi' poor Miss Leaf." 
 
 This valorous determination taken, the 
 poor maid- servant's dream was broken 
 by the opening of the parlour door, and an 
 outcry of Ascott's for his coat and gloves, 
 he having to fetch his aunts home at nine 
 o'clock. And as they all stood together at 
 the front-door, Elizabeth overheard Mr. 
 Lyon say something about what a beautiful 
 night it was. 
 
 " It would do you no harm, Miss Hilary ; 
 will you walk with us ? " 
 
 *' If you like." 
 
 Hilary went upstairs for her bonnet and 
 
 K 2
 
 132 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 shawl ; but when, a minute or two after, 
 Elizabeth followed her with a candle, she 
 found her standing in the centre of the 
 room, all in the dark, her face white, and 
 her hands trembling. 
 
 '' Thank you, thank you ! " she said, me- 
 chanically, as Elizabeth folded and fastened 
 her shawl for her — and descended imme- 
 diately. Elizabeth watched her take, not 
 Ascott's arm, but Mr. Lyon's, and walk 
 down the Terrace in the starlight. 
 
 " Some'at 's wrong. I 'd like to know 
 who 's been a-vexin' of her," thought fiercely 
 the young servant. 
 
 No, nobody had been "a-vexing" her 
 mistress. There was nobody to blame ; 
 only there had happened to Hilary one of 
 those things which strike like a sword 
 through a young and happy heart, taking 
 all the life and youth out of it. 
 
 Kobert Lyon had, half-an-hour ago, told 
 her — and she had had to hear it as a piece 
 of simple news, to which she had only to 
 say, " Indeed! " — that to-day and to-morrow 
 were his two last days at Stowbury — almost
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 133 
 
 liis last in England. Within a week he was 
 to sail for India. 
 
 There had befallen him what most people 
 would have considered a piece of rare good 
 fortune. At the London University, a 
 fellow-student, whom he had been gratui- 
 tously " coaching " in Hindostanee, fell ill, 
 and was *' thrown upon his hands," as he 
 briefly defined services which must have 
 been great, since they resulted in this end. 
 The young man's father — a Liverpool and 
 Bombay merchant — made him an offer to 
 go out there, to their house, at a rising 
 salary of 300 rupees a month for three 
 years ; after the third year to become a 
 junior partner, remaining at Bombay in that 
 capacity for two years more. 
 
 This he told to Hilary and Ascott in 
 almost as few words as I have here put it 
 — for brevity seemed a refuge to him, as 
 it was also to Hilary. But Ascott asked 
 so many questions that his aunt needed to 
 ask none. She only listened, trying to take 
 in this news, and understand it, that is,- in 
 a consecutive, intelligent, business shape.
 
 134 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 without feeling it. She dared not let her- 
 self feel it, not for a second, till they were 
 out, arm-in-arin, under the quiet winter 
 stars. Then she heard his voice asking her- • 
 
 " So you think I was right ?" 
 
 "Right?" she echoed mechanically. 
 
 " I mean, in accepting this sudden offer 
 and changing my whole plan of life. I did 
 not do it — believe me — without a motive." 
 
 What motive ? she would once unhesi- 
 tatingly have asked — now she could not. 
 
 Robert Lyon continued speaking, dis- 
 tinctly and yet in an under-tone, which, 
 though Ascott was walking a few yards off, 
 Hilary felt was meant for her and her alone 
 to hear. 
 
 " The change is, you perceive, from the 
 life of a student to that of a man of business. 
 I do not deny that I preferred the first. 
 Once upon a time to be a Fellow in a col- 
 lege, or a Professor, or the like, was my 
 utmost aim ; and I would have half killed 
 myself with study in order to attain it. 
 ;N"ow — I think differently. I want, not 
 learning or fame, but money."
 
 iUSTRESS AND MAID. 135 
 
 He paused. If he required an answer, 
 it did not come. 
 
 " I wish, not so much to be rich, as to get 
 a decent competence, and to get it as soon 
 as I can, ^vithout ruining my health more 
 than I have already done by study." 
 
 *' Have you been ill ? You never said 
 so." 
 
 " Oh, no, it was hardly worth while. And 
 I knew an active life would soon set me 
 rio^ht ao'ain. No fear ! there 's life in the 
 old dog yet. He does not wish to die. 
 But," Mr. Lyon pursued, " I have had a 
 'sair fecht' the last year — one which I 
 would not go through again, or see any 
 one dear to me go through it — not for 
 worlds ! It is over, but it has left its 
 scars. Strange ! I have been poor all my 
 life, yet I never till now felt an actual terror 
 of poverty." 
 
 Hilary shrank within herself, less even at 
 the words than at something in their tone 
 — something hard, nay fierce: something 
 at once despairing and aggressive. 
 
 " It is strange," she said; ^'such a terror
 
 136 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 is not like you. I feel none : I cannot even 
 understand it." 
 
 " No, I knew you could not," he muttered ; 
 and was silent. 
 
 So was Hilary. A vague trouble came 
 over her. Could it be that he, Eobert Lyon, 
 had been seized with the " auri sacra fames," 
 which he had so often inveighed against 
 and despised ? — that his long struggle with 
 poverty had caused in him such an over- 
 weening desire for riches, that to obtain 
 them he would sacrifice everything else, 
 exile himself to a far country for years, 
 selling his very life for gold ? 
 
 Such a thought of him was so terrible — 
 that is, would have been, were it tenable — 
 that Hilary for an instant felt herself shiver 
 all over. The next she spoke out — in 
 justice to him she forced herself to speak 
 out — all her honest soul. 
 
 " I do believe that this going abroad to 
 make a fortune, which young men so delight 
 in, is often a most fatal mistake. They 
 give up far more than they gain — country, 
 home, health. I think a man has no right
 
 MISTKESS AND MAID. 137 
 
 to sell his life any more than his soul, for 
 so many thousands a year." 
 
 Eobert Lyon smiled — " Xo, and I am not 
 selling mine. With my temperate habits I 
 have as good a chance of health at Bombay 
 as in London — perhaps better. And the 
 years I must be absent I would have been 
 absent almost as much from you — I mean, 
 they would have been spent in Avork as 
 engrossing and as hard. They will soon 
 
 pass 
 
 and then I shall come hom.e rich- 
 
 rich — Do you think T am growing mer- 
 cenary ?" 
 " Xo." 
 
 " Tell m.e what you do think about me." 
 
 "I — cannot quite understand you." 
 
 " And I cannot make you understand 
 
 — I ought not even to try. But I will, 
 
 when I come back again. Till then you 
 
 must trust me, Hilary." 
 
 It happens occasionally, in moments of 
 all but intolerable pain, that some small 
 thing, a word, a look, a touch of a hand, 
 lets in such a gleam of peace, that nothing 
 ever extin2:uishes the li^ht of it : it burns on
 
 138 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 for years and years, sometimes clear, some- 
 times obscured, but as ineffaceable from 
 life and memory as a star from its place in 
 the heavens. Such, both then and through 
 the lonely years to come, were those five 
 words, " You must trust me, Hilary." 
 
 She did ; and in the perfectness of that 
 trust, her own separate identity, with all 
 its consciousness of pain, seemed annihilated: 
 she did not think of herself at all, only of 
 him, and with him, and for him. So for 
 the time being she lost all sense of personal 
 suffering, and their walk that night was as 
 cheerful and happy as if they were to walk 
 together, for weeks and months and years, 
 in undivided confidence and content, instead 
 of its being the last — the very last. 
 
 Some one has said that all lovers have 
 soon or late to learn to be only friends: 
 happiest and safest are those in whom the 
 friendship is the foundation — always firm 
 and ready to fall back upon, long after the 
 fascination of passion dies. It may take a 
 little from the romance of these two, if I 
 own that Robert Lyon talked to Hilary not
 
 mSTEESS AND MAID. 139 
 
 a word about love, and a good deal about 
 pure business; telling her all his affairs 
 and arrangements, and giving her as clear 
 an idea of his future life as it was possible 
 to do within the limits of one brief half- 
 hour. 
 
 Then casting a glance round, and seeing 
 that Ascott was quite out of ear-shot, he 
 said, with that tender fall of the voice that 
 felt, as some poet hath it — 
 
 Like a still embrace — 
 
 " Now, tell me as much as you can about 
 yourself." 
 
 At first there seemed nothing to tell ; but 
 gradually he drew from Hilary a good deal. 
 Johanna's feeble health, which caused her 
 continuing to teach to be very unadvisable; 
 and the gradual diminishing of the school 
 — from what cause they could not account 
 — which made it very doubtful whether 
 some change would not soon or late be 
 necessary. 
 
 What this change should be, she and Mr. 
 Lyon discussed a little ; as far as in the
 
 140 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 utterly indefinite position of affairs was 
 possible. Also, from some otlier questions 
 of his, she spoke to him about another dread 
 which had lurked in her mind, and vet to 
 which she could give no tangible shape — 
 about Ascott. He could not remove it, he 
 did not attempt ; but he soothed it a little, 
 advising with her as to the best way of 
 managing the wilful lad. His strong clear 
 sense, just judgment, and, above all, a cer- 
 tain unspoken sense of union, as if all that 
 concerned her and hers he took naturally 
 upon himself as his own, gave Hilary such 
 comfort, that even on this night, with a 
 full consciousness of all that was to follow, 
 she was happy — nay, she had not been 
 so happy for years. Perhaps (let the truth 
 be told, the glorious truth of true love, that 
 its recognition, spoken or silent, constitutes 
 the only perfect joy of life, that of two 
 made one), perhaps she had never been so 
 really happy since she was born. 
 
 The last thing he did Avas to make her 
 promise that he should be kept acquainted 
 with all the concerns of the Leaf family.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 141 
 
 and that in any and all difficulty she would 
 apply to him. 
 
 " To me, and to no one else, remember. 
 No one but myself must help you. And I will, 
 so long as I am alive. Do you believe this ? " 
 
 She looked up at him by the lamp-light, 
 and said, " I do." 
 
 " And you promise ?" 
 
 '- Yes." 
 
 Then they loosed arms, and Hilary knew 
 that they should never walk together again 
 till — when and how ? 
 
 Returning, of course he walked with 
 Miss Leaf ; and throughout the next day, 
 a terribly w^et Sunday, spent by them en- 
 tirely in the little parlour, they had not a 
 minute of special or private talk together. 
 He did not seem to wish it — indeed almost 
 avoided it. 
 
 Thus slipped away the strange, still day 
 — a Sunday never to be forgotten. At 
 night, after prayers were over, Mr. Lyon 
 rose suddenly, saying he must leave them 
 now ; he was obliged to start from Stow- 
 bury at daybreak.
 
 142 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Shall we not see you again ?" asked 
 Johanna. 
 
 " No. This will be my last Sunday in 
 England. I wished to spend it here. 
 Good-bye !" 
 
 He turned excessively pale, shook hands 
 silently with them all — Hilary last — and 
 almost before they recognised the fact, he 
 was gone. 
 
 With him departed, not all Hilary's peace 
 or faith or courage of heart, for to those who 
 love truly, w^hile the best-beloved lives, and 
 lives worthily, no parting is hopeless and 
 no grief overwhelming ; but all the bright- 
 ness of her youth, all the sense of joy that 
 young people have in loving, and in being 
 beloved again — in fond meetings and 
 fonder partings, in endless walks and talks, 
 in sweet kisses and clinging arms. Such 
 happiness was not for her : when she saw it 
 the lot of others, she said to herself, some- 
 times with a natural sharp sting of pain, 
 but oftener with a solemn acquiescence — 
 " It is the will of God ; it is the will of God." 
 
 Johanna, too, who would have given her 
 life almost to bring some colour back to the
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 143 
 
 white face of her darling, of whom she 
 asked no questions, and who never com- 
 plained nor confessed anything — many and 
 many a night when Hilary either lay awake 
 by her side, or tossed and moaned in her 
 sleep, till the elder sister took her in her 
 arms like a baby — Johanna, too, said to 
 herself, " This is the will of God." 
 
 I have told thus much in detail the brief, 
 sad story of Hilary's youth, to show how 
 impossible it was that Elizabeth Hand could 
 live in the house with these two womrn, 
 without being strongly influenced by them 
 as every person — especially every woman 
 — influences, for good or for evil, every 
 other person connected with her or de- 
 pendent upon her. 
 
 Elizabeth was a girl of close observation 
 and keen perception. Besides, to most 
 people, whether or not their sympathy be 
 universal, so far as the individual beloved 
 is concerned, any deep ' afi'ection generally 
 lends eyes, tact, and delicacy. 
 
 Thus, when on the Monday morning at 
 breakfast Miss Selina observed, what a 
 fine day Mr. Lyon was having for his
 
 144 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 journey ; what a lucky fellow lie was ; how 
 he would be sure to make a fortune, and if 
 so, she Avondered whether they should ever 
 see or hear anythmg of him again — Eliza- 
 beth, from the glimpse she caught of Miss 
 Hilary's face, and from the quiet way in 
 which Miss Leaf merely answered, " Time 
 will show," and began talking to Selina 
 about some other subject, resolved never 
 in any way to make the smallest allusion to 
 Mr. Robert Lyon. Something had hap- 
 pened, she did not know what ; and it was 
 not her business to find out; the family 
 affairs, so far as she was trusted with them, 
 were warmly her own, but into the family 
 secrets she had no right to pry. 
 
 Yet, long after Miss Selina had ceased to 
 " wonder " about him, or even to name him 
 — his presence or absence did not touch 
 her personally, and she was always the 
 centre of her own small world of interest — 
 the little maid- servant kept in her mind, 
 and pondered over at odd times, every pos- 
 sible solution of the mystery of this gentle- 
 man's sudden visit ; of the long wet Sunday
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 145 
 
 when he sat all day talking with her mis- 
 tresses in the parlour ; of the evening 
 prayer, when Miss Leaf had twice to stop, 
 her voice faltered so ; and of the night 
 when, long after all the others had gone to 
 bed, Elizabeth, coming suddenly into the 
 parlour, had found Miss Hilary sitting alone 
 over the embers of the fire, with the 
 saddest, saddest look ! so that the girl had 
 softly shut the door again without speaking 
 to her. 
 
 Elizabeth did more ; which, strange as 
 it may appear, a servant who knows, or is 
 supposed to know, nothing of what has hap- 
 pened, can often do better than a member 
 of the family, who knoAVS everything — and 
 this knowledge is sometimes the most irri- 
 tating consciousness a sufferer has. She 
 followed her young mistress with a steady 
 daily watchfulness, so quiet and silent that 
 Hilary never found it out — saved her 
 every little hou^hold care, gave her every 
 little household treat. Not much to do, 
 and less to be chronicled ; but the way in 
 which she did it was all. - . 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 During the long dull winter days, to 
 come in and find the parlour-fire always 
 bright, the hearth clean swept, and the 
 room tidy ; never to enter the kitchen 
 without the servant's face clearing up into 
 a smile ; when her restless irritability made 
 her forget things, and grow quite vexed in 
 the search after them, to see that somehow 
 her shoes were never misplaced, and her 
 gloves always came to hand in some mys- 
 terious manner — these trifles, in her first 
 heavy days of darkness, soothed Hilary 
 more than words could tell. 
 
 And the sight of Miss Hilary going about 
 the house and school-room as usual, with 
 that poor white face of hers ; nay, gradu- 
 ally bringing to the family fireside, as usual, 
 her harmless little joke, and her merry 
 laugh at it and herself — who shall say what 
 lessons may not have been taught by 
 this to the humble servant, dropping 
 deep-sown into her heart, to germinate 
 and fructify as her future life's needs 
 required ? 
 
 It might have been so — God knows !
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 147 
 
 He alone can know, who, through what (to 
 us) seem the infinite littlenesses of our 
 mortal existence, is educating us into the 
 infinite greatness of His and our immor- 
 tality. 
 
 L 2
 
 148 
 
 CHAPTER YII. 
 
 Autumn soon lapsed into winter ; Christ- 
 mas came and went, bringing, not Ascott, 
 as they hoped and he had promised, but a 
 very serious evil in the shape of sundry 
 bills of his, which, he confessed in a most 
 piteous letter to his aunt Hilary, were 
 absolutely unpayable out of his godfather's 
 allowance. They were not large ; or would 
 not have seemed so to rich people ; and 
 they were for no more blameable luxuries 
 than horse-hire, and a dinner or two to 
 friends out in the country : but they 
 looked serious to a household which rarely 
 was more than five pounds beforehand 
 with the world. 
 
 He had begged Aunt Hilary to keep his 
 secret — but that was evidently impossible ; 
 so on the day the school-accounts were 
 being written out and sent in, and their
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 149 
 
 amount anxiously reckoned, she laid before 
 her sisters the lad's letter, full of penitence 
 and promises : — 
 
 " I will be careful — I will indeed — if you 
 will help me this once, dear Aunt Hilary ; 
 and don't think too ill of me. I have done 
 nothing wicked. And you don't know 
 London — you don't know, with a lot of 
 young fellows about one, how very hard it 
 is to say No." 
 
 At that unlucky postscript, the Misses 
 Leaf sorrowfully exchanged looks. Little 
 the lad thought about it — but these few 
 words were the very sharpest pang Ascott 
 had ever given to his aunts. 
 
 " What's bred in the bone will come out 
 in the flesh." " Like father like son." "The 
 sins of the parents shall be visited on the 
 children." So runs many a proverb ; so 
 confirms the unerring decree of a just 
 God, who would not be a just God 
 did He allow Himself to break His own 
 righteous laws for the government of the 
 universe ; did He falsify the requirements 
 of His own holy and pure being, by per-
 
 150 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 mitting any other wages for sin than death. 
 And though, through His mercy, sin for- 
 saken escapes sin's penalty, and every 
 human being has it in his power to modify, 
 if not to conquer, any hereditary moral as 
 well as physical disease, thereby avoiding 
 the doom and alleviating the curse — still 
 the original law remains in force, and ought 
 to remain, an example and a warning. As 
 true as that every individual sin which a 
 man commits breeds multitudes more, is it 
 that every individual sinner may transmit 
 his own peculiar type of weakness or 
 wickedness to a whole race, disappearing in 
 one generation, reappearing in another, 
 exactly the same as physical peculiarities 
 do, requiring the utmost caution of educa- 
 tion to counteract the terrible tendencies of 
 nature — the " something in the blood " 
 which is so difficult to eradicate; which 
 may even make the third and fourth gene- 
 rations execrate the m^emory of him or her 
 who was its origin. 
 
 The long life-curse of Henry Leaf the 
 elder, and Henry Leaf the younger, had
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 151 
 
 been — the women of the family well knew — 
 that they were men " who couldn't say No." 
 So keenly were the three sisters alive to 
 this fault — it could hardly be called a 
 crime, and yet in its consequences it was so 
 — so sickening the terror of it which their 
 own wretched experience had implanted in 
 their minds — that during Ascott's childhood 
 and youth, his very fractiousness and 
 roughness, his little selfishnesses, and his 
 persistence in his own will against theirs, 
 had been hailed by his aunts as a good 
 omen that he would grow up " so unlike his 
 poor father." 
 
 If the two unhappy Henry Leafs — father 
 and son — could but have come out of their 
 graves that night, and beheld these three 
 women — their dauo-hters and sisters — sitting: 
 with Ascott's letter on the table, planning 
 how the household's small expenses could 
 be contracted, its still smaller luxuries re- 
 linquished, in order that the boy might 
 honourably pay for pleasures he might so 
 easily have done without ! If they could 
 have seen the weight of apprehension which
 
 152 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 then sank like a stone on these long- tried 
 hearts, never to be afterwards quite re- 
 moved, lightened sometimes, but always — 
 however Ascott might promise and amend 
 — always there ! On such a discovery, 
 surely, these two " poor ghosts '' would have 
 fled away moaning, wishing they had died 
 childless, or that during their mortal lives 
 any amount of self-restraint and self-com- 
 pulsion had purged from their natures the 
 accursed thing — the sin which had worked 
 itself out in sorrow upon everyone belong- 
 ing to them, years after their own heads 
 were laid in the quiet dust. 
 
 " We must do it," was the conclusion the 
 Misses Leaf unanimously came to — even 
 Selina ; who, with all her faults, had a fair 
 share of good feeling and of that close 
 clin o;in o; to kindred which is found in fallen 
 households, or households whom the sacred 
 bond of common poverty has drawn to- 
 gether in a way that large, well-to-do home 
 circles can never quite understand. '' We 
 must not let the boy remain in debt ; it 
 would be such a disgrace to the family."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 153 
 
 "It is not the remaining in debt, but the 
 incurring of it, which is the real disgrace 
 to Ascott and the family." 
 
 " Hush, Hilary," said Johanna, pointing 
 to the opening door ; but it was too late. 
 
 Elizabeth, coming suddenly in — or else 
 the ladies had been so engrossed with their 
 conversation that they had not noticed her, 
 — had evidently heard every word of the 
 last sentence. Her conscious face showed 
 it ; more especially the bright scarlet which 
 covered both her cheeks when Miss Leaf 
 said " Hush ! " She stood apparently irre- 
 solute as to whether she should run away 
 again ; then her native honesty got the 
 upper hand, and she advanced into the 
 room. 
 
 " If you please, missis, I didn't mean to 
 — but I 've heard — " 
 
 " What have you heard — that is, how 
 much ? " 
 
 "Just what Miss Hilary said — about 
 Master Ascott. Don't be afeard. I shan't 
 tell. I never chatter about the family. 
 Mother told me not."
 
 154 MISTRESS AND MAID, 
 
 " You owe a great deal, Elizabeth, to 
 your good mother. Now go away." 
 
 " And another time," said Miss Selina, 
 " knock at the door." 
 
 This was Elizabeth's first initiation into 
 what many a servant has to share — the 
 secret burden of the family. After that 
 day, though they did not actually confide 
 in her, her mistresses used no effort to con- 
 ceal that they had cares ; that the domestic 
 economies must, this winter, be especially 
 studied ; there must be no extra fires, no 
 candles left burning to waste ; and, once a 
 week or so, a few butterless breakfasts or 
 meatless dinners must be partaken of cheer- 
 fully, ia both parlour and kitchen. The 
 Misses Leaf never stinted their servant in 
 anything in which they did not stint them- 
 selves. 
 
 Strange to say, in spite of Miss Selina's 
 prophecies, the girl's respectful conduct did 
 not abate ; on the contrary, it seemed to 
 increase. The nearer she was lifted to her 
 mistresses' level the more her mind grew, 
 so that she could better understand her
 
 MISTRESS A^sD MAID. 155 
 
 mistresses' cares, and the deeper became 
 her appreciation of the only thing which 
 gives one human being any real authority 
 over another — personal character. 
 
 Therefore, though the family means were 
 narrowed, and the family luxuries few, 
 Elizabeth cheerfully put up with all ; she 
 even felt a sort of pride in wasting nothing 
 and in making the best of everything, as the 
 others did. Perhaps it may be said she 
 was an exceptional servant ; and yet I would 
 not do her class the wrong to believe so : 
 I would rather believe that there are many 
 such among it ; many good, honest, faithful 
 girls, who only need good mistresses unto 
 whom to be honest and faithful, and they 
 would be no less so than Elizabeth Hand. 
 
 The months went by — heavy and anxious 
 months; for the school gradually dwindled 
 away, and Ascott's letters — now almost the 
 only connection his aunts had with the outer 
 world, for poverty necessarily diminished 
 even their small Stowbury society — ^became 
 more and more unsatisfactory. Besides 
 the want of information in them was not
 
 156 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 supplied by those other letters which had 
 once kept Johanna's heart easy concerning 
 the boy. 
 
 Mr. Lyon had written once before sailing, 
 nay, after sailing, for he had sent it home 
 by the pilot from the English Channel : then 
 there was, of course, silence. October, No- 
 vember, December, January, February, 
 March — how often did Hilary count the 
 months, and wonder how soon a letter could 
 come — nay, sometimes pausing to drive 
 away the doubt wdiether it ever would 
 come. Now and then — the sharp present 
 stinging her with its small daily pains, the 
 future looking dark before her and them all 
 — she felt so forlorn, so forsaken, that but 
 for a certain tiny w^ell-spring of hope, which 
 rarely dries up till long after three-and- 
 twenty, she could have sat down and sighed, 
 " My good days are done." 
 
 Rich people break their hearts much 
 sooner than poor people ; that is, they more 
 easily get into that morbid state which is 
 glorified by the term, "a broken heart." 
 Poor people cannot afford it. Their constant
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 157 
 
 labour " physics pain." Their few and nar- 
 row pleasures seldom pall. Holy poverty ! 
 black as its dark side is, it has its bright 
 side too — that is, when it is honest, fearless, 
 free from selfishness, wastefulness, and 
 bickerings ; above all, free from the terror 
 of debt. 
 
 " We '11 starve — we '11 go into the work- 
 house rather than we '11 go into debt ! " cried 
 Hilary once, in a passion of tears, when she 
 was in sore want of a shawl, and Selina 
 urged her to get it on credit, and wait till 
 she could pay for it. ^'Yes — the work- 
 house! It would be less shame to be 
 honourably indebted to the laws of the 
 land than to be meanly indebted, under 
 false pretences, to any individual in it." 
 
 And when, in payment for some acci- 
 dental lessons, she received next month 
 enough money to buy a shawl, and a bonnet 
 too — nay, by great ingenuity, another 
 bonnet for Johanna — Hilary could have 
 danced and sung — sung, in the gladness 
 and relief of her heart, the glorious eu- 
 thanasia of poverty.
 
 158 MISTRESS AND MAID» 
 
 But these things happened only occa- 
 sionally; the daily life was hard still, ay, 
 very hard, even though at last came the 
 letter from " foreign parts ; " and following 
 it, at regular intervals, other letters. They 
 were full of facts rather than feelings — 
 simple, straightforward ; worth little as 
 literary compositions ; schoolmaster and 
 learned man as he was, there was nothing 
 literary or poetical about Mr. Lyon ; but 
 what he wrote was like what he spoke — the 
 accurate reflection of his own clear original 
 mind and honest tender heart. 
 
 His letters gave none the less comfort 
 because, nominally, they were addressed to 
 Johanna. This might have been from some 
 crotchet of over-reserve, or delicacy, or ho- 
 nour — the same which made him part from 
 her for years with no other words than, 
 " You must trust me, Hilary ; " but what- 
 ever it was, she respected it, and she did 
 trust him. And whether Johanna answered 
 his letters or not, month by month they 
 unfailingly came, keeping her completely 
 informed of all his proceedings, and letting
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 159 
 
 out, as epistles from over the seas often do, 
 much more of himself and his character 
 than he was probably aware he betrayed. 
 
 And Hilary, whose sole experience of 
 mankind had been the scarcely remembered 
 father, the too well remembered brother, 
 and the anxiously watched nephew, thanked 
 God that there seemed to be one man in 
 the world whom a woman could lean her 
 heart upon, and not feel the support break 
 like a reed beneath her — one man whom 
 she could entirely believe in, and safely and 
 sacredly trust.
 
 160 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 Time slipped by. Robert Lyon had been 
 away more than three years. But in the 
 monotonous life of the sisters at Stow- 
 bury nothing was changed ; except, per- 
 haps, Elizabeth, who had grown quite a 
 w^oman. She might almost have passed for 
 thirty ; so solidly old-fashioned were her 
 figure and her manners. 
 
 Ascott Leaf had finished his walking the 
 hospitals and his examinations, and was 
 now fitted to commence practice for himself. 
 His godfather had still continued his allow- 
 ance ; though once or twice, when he came 
 down to Stowbur}^ the young man had asked 
 his aunts to help him in some small debts 
 
 the last time in one a little more serious ; 
 
 when, after some sad and sore consultation, 
 it had been resolved to tell him he must 
 contrive to live within his own means. For
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 161 
 
 they were poorer than they used to be ; many 
 more schools had arisen in the town, and 
 theirs had dwindled away. It was becoming 
 a source of serious anxiety whether they 
 could possibly make ends meet; and when, 
 the next Christmas, Ascott sent them a 
 five-pound note — an actual five-pound note, 
 too-ether with a fond oTateful letter that 
 was worth it all — the aunts were deeply 
 thankful, and very happy. 
 
 But still the school declined. One night 
 they were speculating upon the causes of 
 this, and Hilary was declaring, in a half- 
 jocular, half-earnest way, that it must be 
 because a prophet is never a prophet in his 
 own country. 
 
 " The Stowbury people will never believe 
 how clever I am. Only, it is a useless sort 
 of cleverness, I fear. My Greek, Latin, 
 and mathematics are of little use to infants 
 under seven, such as Stowbury persists in 
 sending to us." 
 
 *' They think I am only fit to teach little 
 children — and perhaps it is true," said Miss 
 Leaf, meekly. 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " I wish you had not to teach at all. I 
 wish I were a daily governess — I might be, 
 and earn enough to keep the whole family ; 
 only, it could not be at Stowbury." 
 
 *' I wonder," said Johanna, thoughtfully, 
 " if we shall have to make a change." 
 
 " A change ! " It almost pained the 
 elder sister to see how the younger bright- 
 ened up at the word. "Where ? — to Lon- 
 don ? Oh, I have so longed to go and live 
 in London ! But I thought you would not 
 like it, Johanna." 
 
 That was true. Miss Leaf, whom feeble 
 health had made prematurely old, would 
 willingly have ended her days in the fami- 
 liar town ; but Hilary was young and 
 strong. Johanna called to mind the days 
 when she, too, had felt that rest was only 
 another name for dulness ; when the most 
 difficult thing possible was what seemed 
 now so easy — to sit down and endure. 
 
 Besides, unlike herself, Hilary had her 
 life all before her. It might be a happy 
 life, safe in a good man's tender keeping : 
 those unfailing letters from India seemed
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 163 
 
 to prophesy that it v/ould. But no one 
 could say. Miss Leaf's own experience 
 had not led her to place much faith in either 
 men or happiness. 
 
 Still, however Hilary's future might turn 
 out, it would likely be a very different one 
 from that quiet colourless life of hers. And 
 as she looked at her young sister, with the 
 twilight glow on her face — they were taking 
 an evening stroll up and down the terrace 
 — Johanna hoped and prayed it might be 
 so. Her own lot seemed easy enough for 
 herself; but for Hilary — she would like to 
 see Hilary something better than a poor 
 schoolmistress at Stowbury. 
 
 No more was said at that time, but 
 Johanna had the deep, still, Mary-like 
 nature, which "kept" things, and '^pondered 
 them in her heart ;" so that when the sub- 
 ject was revived again, she was able to 
 meet it with the sweet calmness which was 
 her especial characteristic — the unruffled 
 peace of a soul that no worldly storms could 
 disturb overmuch, for it had long since cast 
 anchor in the world unseen. 
 
 M 2
 
 164 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 The circumstances Avhich brought up 
 again the question of the Great Metro- 
 politan Hegira, as Hilary called it, was a 
 letter from Mr. Ascott, as follows : — 
 
 " Miss Leaf. 
 
 " Madam, — I shall be obliged by your 
 informing me if it is your wish, as it seems 
 to be your nephew's, that, instead of re- 
 turning to Stowbury, he should settle in 
 London as a surgeon and general practi- 
 tioner. 
 
 " His education complete, I consider that 
 I have done my duty by him ; but I may 
 assist him occasionally still, unless he turns 
 out — as his lather did before him — a 
 young man who prefers being helped to 
 helping himself ; in which case I shall have 
 nothing more to do with him. 
 
 I remain, Madam, your obedient servant, 
 " Peter Ascott." 
 
 The sisters read this letter, passing it 
 round the table, none of them apparently 
 liking to be the first to comment upon it. 
 At length Hilary said —
 
 MISTRESS AXD MAID. 165 
 
 " I think that reference to poor Henry is 
 perfectly brutal." 
 
 " And yet he was very kind to Henry. 
 And if it had not been for his common 
 sense in at once sending poor little Ascott 
 and the nurse down to Stowbury, the baby 
 might have died. But you don't remember 
 anything of that sorrowful time, my dear," 
 said Johanna, sighing. 
 
 " He has been kind enough, though he 
 has done it in such a pati^onising way," ob- 
 served Selina. " I suppose that 's the real 
 reason of his doing it. He thinks it 
 fine to patronise us, and show kindness to 
 our family ; he, the stout bullet- headed 
 grocer's boy, who used to sit and stare at 
 us all church-time." 
 
 " At you, you mean. Wasn't he called 
 your admirer?" said Hilary, mischievously ; 
 upon which Selina drew herself up in great 
 indignation. 
 
 And then they fell to talking of that 
 anxious question — Ascott's future. A 
 little they reproached themselves that they 
 had left the lad so long in London — so
 
 166 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 long out of their own fond influen-ce, which 
 might have counteracted the evil sharply 
 hinted in his godfather's letter. But, once 
 away, to lure him back to their poor home 
 was impossible. 
 
 '• Suppose we were to go to him," sug- 
 gested Hilary. 
 
 The poor and friendless possess one great 
 advantage — they have nobody to ask advice 
 of — nobody to whom it matters much what 
 they do or where they go. The family mind 
 has but to make itself up, and act accord- 
 ingly. Thus within an hour or two of the 
 receipt of Mr. Ascott's letter, Hilary went 
 into the kitchen, and told Elizabeth that, as 
 soon as her vv^ork was done, Miss Leaf wished 
 to have a little talk with her. 
 
 " Eh ! what 's wrong ? Has Miss Selina 
 been a-grumbling at me ?" 
 
 Elizabeth was in one of her bad humours, 
 which, though of course they never ought 
 to have, servants do have as well as their 
 superiors. Hilary perceived this, by the 
 way she threw the coals on and tossed the 
 chairs about. But to-day her heart was
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 167 
 
 full of far more serious cares than Eliza- 
 beth's ill-temper. She replied composedly — 
 
 " I have not heard that either of my 
 sisters is displeased with you. AVhat they 
 want to talk to you about is for your own 
 good. We are thinking of making a great 
 change. We intend leaving Stowbury, and 
 going to live in London." 
 
 " Going to live in London ! " 
 
 Now, quick as her tact and observation 
 were — her heart tauo^ht her these thino^s 
 — Elizabeth's head was a thorough Saxon 
 head, slow to receive impressions. It was a 
 family saying, that nothing was so hard as 
 to put a new idea into Elizabeth, except to 
 get it out again. 
 
 For this reason Hilary preferred paving 
 the way quietly, before startling her with 
 the sudden intelligence of their contem- 
 plated change. 
 
 "Well, w^hat do yen say to the plan?" 
 asked she, good-humouredly. 
 
 " I dunnot like it at all," was the brief 
 gruff answer of Elizabeth Hand. 
 
 Now it was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines,
 
 168 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 that no human beino; is srood for much 
 unless he or she has what is called " a will 
 of one's oAvn." Perhaps this, like many 
 another creed, was with her the result of 
 circumstances. But she held it firmly. 
 With that exaggerated one-sidedness of 
 feeling which any bitter family or personal 
 experience is sure to leave behind, a strong 
 will was the quality that first attracted her 
 in everybody. It had been so in the case of 
 Robert Lyon : and likewise in Elizabeth's. 
 
 But this virtue has its inconveniences. 
 When the maid began sweeping up her 
 hearth with a noisy angry gesture, the mis- 
 tress did the wisest and most dio;nified 
 thing a mistress could do under the circum- 
 stances, and which she knew was the 
 sharpest rebuke she could administer to 
 the sensitive Elizabeth — she immediately 
 quitted the kitchen. 
 
 For an hour after the parlour bell did not 
 ring ; and though it was washing-day, no 
 Miss Hilary appeared to assist, as usual, in 
 folding up the clothes. Elizabeth, subdued 
 and wretched, waited till she could wait no
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 169 
 
 longer ; then knocked at the door, and asked 
 humbly *' if she should bring in supper ? " 
 
 The extreme kindness of the answer — 
 " Come in ; we wanted to speak to you/' 
 crushed the lingering fragments of ill- 
 humour out of the girl. 
 
 " Miss Hilary has told you our future 
 plans, Elizabeth ; now we wish to have a 
 little talk with you about yours." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 Miss Leaf continued. " We conclude you 
 will not wish to go Avitli us to London ; 
 and it would be hardly advisable you 
 should. You can o-et hiHier wao-es now 
 than any we can afford to give you ; 
 indeed, we have more than once thought 
 of telling you so, and offering you your 
 choice of trying for a better place." 
 
 " You 're very kind," was the answer, 
 stolid rather than grateful. 
 
 " No ; I think we are merely honest. We 
 should never think of keeping a girl upon 
 lower wages than she was worth. Hitherto, 
 however, the arrangement has been quite 
 fair — you know, Elizabeth, you have given
 
 170 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 US a deal of trouble in the teaching of you." 
 And Miss Leaf smiled, half sadly, as if this, 
 the first of the coming changes, hurt her 
 more than she liked to express. " Come, 
 my girl," she added, "you needn't look so 
 serious. We are not in the least vexed 
 with you ; we shall be very sorry to lose 
 you ; and we will give you the best of cha- 
 racters when you leave." 
 
 ^' I dunnot — mean — to leave at all." 
 
 Elizabeth threw out the words like 
 pellets, in a choked fashion, and disappeared 
 suddenly from the parlour. 
 
 " Who would have thought it !" exclaimed 
 Selina ; " I declare the girl was crying." 
 
 No mistake about that ; though when, a 
 few minutes after, Miss Hilary entered the 
 kitchen, Elizabeth tried in a hurried shame- 
 faced way to hide her tears by being very 
 busy over something. Her mistress took 
 no notice, but began, as usual on washing- 
 days, to assist in various domestic matters, 
 in the midst of which she said quietly — 
 
 " And so, Elizabeth, you would really like 
 to go to London ?"
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 171 
 
 "Xo; I shouldn't like it at all ; I never 
 said I should. But if you go, I shall go 
 too; though missis seems so ready to get 
 shut o' me." 
 
 " It was for your own good, you know." 
 
 ^' You always said it was for a girl's good 
 to stop in one place ; and if you think I 
 am going to another — I aren't, that 's all." 
 
 Rude as the form of the speech was — 
 almost the first rude speech that Elizabeth 
 had ever made to Miss Hilary, and which 
 under other circumstances she would have 
 felt bound severely to reprove — the mistress 
 passed it over. That which lurked beneath 
 it, the sharpness of wounded love, touched 
 her heart. She felt that, in spite of the girl's 
 rough manner, it would have been hard to 
 go into her London kitchen and meet a 
 strange London face, instead of that fond 
 homely one of Elizabeth's. 
 
 Still, she thought it right to explain to 
 her that London life might have many 
 difficulties, that, for the present at least, 
 her wages could not be raised, and the 
 family might at first be in even more
 
 172 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 straitened circumstances than they were at 
 Stowbury. 
 
 " Only at iirst, though, for 1 hope to find 
 plenty of pupils. And soon, we trust, our 
 nephew will get into practice." 
 
 "Is it on account of him you 're going, 
 Miss Hilary ? " 
 
 " Chiefly." 
 
 Elizabeth gave a grunt, which said as 
 plainly as words could say, " I thought so," 
 and relapsed into what she, no doubt, be- 
 lieved to be virtuous indignation, but 
 which, as it was testified against the wrong 
 parties, Avas open to the less favourable in- 
 terpretation of ill-humour — a small injus- 
 tice not uncommon with us all. 
 
 I do not pretend to paint this young 
 woman as a perfect character. She had 
 her fierce dislikes, as well as her strong 
 fidelities ; her faults within and without, 
 which had to be struggled with — as all of 
 us have to struggle to the very end of our 
 days. Oftentimes not till the battle is nigh 
 over — sometimes not till it is quite over — 
 does God give us the victory.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 173 
 
 Without more discussion on either side, 
 it was agreed that Elizabeth should accom- 
 pany her mistresses. Even Mrs. Hand 
 seemed to be pleased thereat, her only 
 doubt being lest her daughter should meet 
 and be led astray by that bad woman, Mrs. 
 Cliffe, Tommy Cliffe's mother, who was 
 reported to have gone to London. But 
 Miss Hilary explained that this meeting 
 was about as probable as the rencontre of 
 two needles in a hay-rick; and, besides, 
 Elizabeth was not the sort of girl to be 
 easily " led astray " by anybody. 
 
 " No, no ; her 's a good wench, though I 
 says it," replied the mother, who was too 
 hard worked to have much sentiment to 
 spare. '' I wish the little uns may take 
 pattern by our Elizabeth. You '11 send 
 her home, maybe, in two or three years' 
 time, to let us have a look at her ? " 
 
 Miss Hilary promised, and then took her 
 way back through the familiar old town — 
 so soon to be familiar no more — thinkinof 
 anxiously, in spite of herself, upon those two 
 or three years, and what they might bring.
 
 174 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 It happened to be a notable day — that 
 sunshiny 28th of June when the Httle 
 round-cheeked damsel, who is a grand- 
 mother now, had the crown of three king- 
 doms first set upon her youthful head ; and 
 when Stowbury, like every other town in the 
 land, was a perfect bower of green arches, 
 garlands, banners ; poor men dined, or poor 
 women drank tea, at white-covered tables, 
 which were spread in the open air, down 
 almost every street. Everybody was out 
 and abroad, looking at or sharing in 
 the holiday-making, wild with merriment, 
 and brimming over with passionate loyalty 
 to the maiden Queen. 
 
 That day is now twenty-four years 
 ago ; but all those who remember it must 
 own there never was a day like it, when, 
 all over the country, every man's heart 
 throbbed with chivalrous devotion, every 
 woman's heart thrilled with womanly ten- 
 derness, towards this one royal girl, who 
 — God bless her ! — has lived to retain and 
 deserve it all. 
 
 Hilary called for, and protected through
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 175 
 
 the crowd, the little timid widow lady who 
 had taken off the Misses Leaf's hands their 
 house and furniture, and whom they had 
 made very happy — as the poor often can 
 make those still poorer than themselves — 
 by refusing to accept anything for the 
 " good- will " of the school. Then she was 
 fetched by Elizabeth, who had been given a 
 whole afternoon's holiday ; and mistress 
 and maid went together home, watching 
 the last of the festivities, the chattering 
 groups that still lingered in the twilight 
 streets ; and listening to the merry notes of 
 the " Triumph," which came down through 
 the lighted windows of the Town Hall, 
 where the open-air tea-drinkers had ad- 
 journed to dance country dances, by civic 
 permission, and in perfectly respectable 
 jollity. 
 
 " I wonder," said Hilary — while, despite 
 some natural regret, her spirit stretched 
 itself out eagerly from the narrowness of 
 the place where she was born into the great 
 wide world; the world where so many 
 grand things were thought and written
 
 176 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 and done; the world where Robert Lyon 
 had so long fought, and was fighting bravely 
 still — " I wonder, Elizabeth, what sort of 
 place London is, and what our life v/ill be 
 in it ? " 
 
 EUzabeth said nothing. For the moment 
 her face seemed to catch the reflected glow 
 of her mistress's, and then it settled down 
 into that look of mingled resistance and 
 resolution which was habitual to her. For 
 the life that was to be, which neither knew 
 — oh, if they had known ! — she also was 
 prepared.
 
 177 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The day of the Grand Hegira came. 
 
 " I remember," said Miss Leaf, as they 
 rumbled for the last time through the 
 empty morning streets of poor old Stowbury, 
 " I remember my grandmother telling me 
 that when my grandfather was courting 
 her, and she out of coquetry refused him, 
 he set off on horseback to London, and she 
 was so wretched to think of all the dangers 
 he ran on the journey, and in London itself, 
 that she never rested till she got him back, 
 and then immediately married him." 
 
 " No such catastrophe as matrimony is 
 likely to happen to any of us, except 
 perhaps to Elizabeth," said Miss Hilary, 
 trying to get up a little feeble mirth, just 
 to pass away the time and lessen the pain 
 of parting, which was almost too much for 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Johanna. "What do you say? Do you 
 mean to get married in London, Elizabeth? " 
 
 But Elizabeth could make no answer, 
 even to kind Miss Hilary. They had not 
 imao^ined she would have felt the leaving: 
 her native place so much. She had 
 watched intently the last glimpse of Stow- 
 bury church tower, and now sat staring 
 blankly, silent and stony, out of the 
 carriage window. Once or twice a large, 
 slow tear gathered in each of her eyes, but 
 it was shaken off angrily from the high 
 cheek-bones, and never settled into absolute 
 crying. They thought it best to take no 
 notice of her. Only, when reaching the 
 new small station, where the " resonant 
 steam eagles " were, for the first time, 
 beheld by these innocent Stowbury ladies, 
 there arose a discussion as to the manner 
 of travelling — Miss Leaf said decidedly — 
 " We will go second-class — for then we 
 can keep Elizabeth with us." Upon which 
 Elizabeth's mouth melted into something 
 between a quiver and a smile. 
 
 Soon the departure was all over, and
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 179 
 
 the little family was compressed into the 
 humble second-class carriage, cheerless and 
 cushionless, whirling through indefinite 
 England in a way that confounded all their 
 geography and topography. Gradually, as 
 the day darkened into heavy, chilly July 
 rain, the carefully kept-up spirits of the 
 four passengers began to sink. Johanna 
 grew very white and worn, Selina became, 
 to use Ascott's phrase, " as cross as two 
 sticks," and even Hilary, turning her eyes 
 from the grey, sodden-looking landscape 
 without, could find no spot of comfort to 
 rest on within the carriage, except that 
 round rosy face of Elizabeth Hand's. 
 
 Whether it was from the mere spirit of 
 contradiction existing in characters like 
 hers, which, especially in youth, are more 
 strong than sweet, or from a higher and 
 better feeling, still, the fact was notice- 
 able, that when everyone else's spirits 
 went down, Elizabeth's went up. J^fothing 
 could bring her out of a " grumpy " fit so 
 satisfactorily as some other persons' falling 
 into one. When Miss Sehna now began to 
 
 N 2
 
 180 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 fidget hither and thither, each tone of her 
 fretful voice seeming to go through her elder 
 sister's every nerve, till even Hilary said, 
 impatiently, "Oh, Selina, can't you be 
 quiet ? " then Ehzabeth rose from her depth 
 of gloomy discontent up to the surface im- 
 mediately. 
 
 She was only a servant ; but Nature 
 bestows that strange, vague thing that we 
 term " force of character " independently 
 of position. Hilary often remembered 
 afterwards how much more comfortable 
 the end of the journey was than she had 
 expected ; how Johanna lay at ease, with 
 her feet on Elizabeth's lap, wrapped in 
 Elizabeth's best woollen shawl; and how, 
 when Selina's whole attention was turned 
 to an ino^enious contrivance with a towel 
 and fork, which stopped the rain from 
 dropping through the carriage-roof — she 
 became far less disagreeable, and even a 
 little proud of her own cleverness. And so 
 there was a temporary lull in Hilary's cares, 
 and she could sit quiet, with her eyes fixed 
 on the rainy landscape, which she did not
 
 :rJISTKKSS AND MAID. 181 
 
 see, and her thoughts wandering towards 
 that unknown place and unknown life into 
 which they were sweeping, as we all sweep, 
 ignorantly, unresistingly, almost uncon- 
 sciously, into new destinies. Hilary, for 
 the first time, began to doubt of theirs. 
 Anxious as she had been to go to London, 
 and wise as the proceeding appeared, now 
 that the die was cast and the cable cut, the 
 old simple, peaceful life at Stowbury grew 
 strangely dear. 
 
 " I wonder if we shall ever go back again, 
 or what is to happen to us before we 
 do go back," she thought, and turned, 
 with a half-defined fear, towards her eldest 
 sister, who looked so old and fragile beside 
 that sturdy, healthy servant-girl — " Eliza- 
 beth ! " and Elizabeth, rubbing Miss Leaf's 
 feet, started at the unwonted sharpness of 
 Miss Hilary's tone — " there ; I '11 do that 
 for my sister. Go and look out of the 
 window at London." 
 
 For the great smoky cloud which began 
 to rise in the rainy horizon was indeed 
 London. Soon, through the thickening
 
 182 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 nebula of houses, they converged to what 
 was then the nucleus of all railway travel- 
 Img, the Euston Terminus, and were 
 hustled on to the platform, and jostled 
 helplessly to and fro — these poor country 
 ladies! Anxiously they scanned the 
 crowd of strange faces for the one only 
 face they knew in the great metropolis 
 — which did not appear. 
 
 "It is very strange — very wrong of 
 Ascott. Hilary, you surely told him the 
 hour correctly? For once, at least, he 
 might have been in time." 
 
 So chafed Miss Selina, while Elizabeth, 
 who, by some miraculous effort of intuitive 
 genius, had succeeded in collecting the 
 luggage, was now engaged in defending it 
 from all comers, especially porters, and 
 making of it a comfortable seat for Miss Leaf. 
 
 " Nay, have patience, Selina. We will give 
 him just five minutes more," said Hilary. 
 
 And Johanna sat down, with her sweet, 
 calm, long-suffering face turned upwards to 
 that younger one, which was, as youth is 
 apt to be, hot, and worried, and angry. And
 
 MISTKESS AND MAID. 183 
 
 SO they waited till the terminus was almost 
 deserted, and the last cab had driven off, 
 when, suddenly, dashing up the station- 
 yard out of another, came Ascott. 
 
 He was so sorry, so very sorry, down- 
 right grieved, at having kept his aunts 
 waiting. But his watch was wrong — some 
 fellows at dinner detained him — the train 
 was before its time, surely. In fact, his 
 aunts never quite made out what the 
 excuse was; but they looked into his 
 bright, handsome face, and their wrath 
 melted like clouds before the sun. He was 
 so gentlemanly, so vv-ell-dressed — much 
 better dressed than even at Stowbury — 
 and he seemed so unfeignedly glad to see 
 them. He handed them all into the cab — 
 even Elizabeth, though v/hispering mean- 
 while to his aunt Hilary, " AYhat on earth 
 did you bring her for?" — and then was 
 just going to leap on to the box himself, 
 when he stopped to ask " Where he should 
 tell cabby to drive to ? " 
 
 " Where to ? " repeated his aunts in 
 undisguised astonishment. They had never
 
 184 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 thought of anything but of being taken 
 home at once by their boy. 
 
 ^' I thought I had explained" — Ascott 
 said confusedly — " at least, I meant to 
 explain when I met you, that I couldn't 
 well take you in to-night. You would not 
 be comfortable. A young fellow's lodgings 
 are not like a house of one's own, and, 
 besides " 
 
 " Besides, when a young fellow is ashamed 
 of his old aunts, he can easily find reasons." 
 
 " Hush, Selina," interposed Miss Leaf. 
 " My dear boy, your old aunts would never 
 let you inconvenience yourself for them. 
 Take us to an inn for the night, and to- 
 morrow we will find lodgings for ourselves." 
 
 Ascott looked greatly relieved. 
 
 " And you are not vexed with me. Aunt 
 Johanna?" said he, with something of his 
 old childish tone of compunction, as he 
 saw — he could not help seeing — the utter 
 weariness which Johanna tried so hard to 
 hide. 
 
 '^ No, my dear, not vexed. Only I wish 
 you had told us this a little sooner, that
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 185 
 
 we mio;ht have made other arrano'ements. 
 Xow, where shall we go ? " 
 
 Ascott mentioned a dozen hotels, but 
 they found he only knew them by name. 
 At last Miss Leaf remembered one, which 
 her father used to go to on his frequent 
 journeys to London, and whence, indeed, 
 he had been brought home to die. And 
 though all the recollections about it were 
 sad enough, still it felt less strange than the 
 rest, in this dreariness of London. So she 
 proposed going to the " Old Bell," Holborn. 
 
 " A capital place ! " exclaimed Ascott, 
 eagerly. ^' And I '11 take and settle you 
 there ; and we '11 order supper and make a 
 jolly night of it. All right. Drive on, cabby ! " 
 
 He jumped on the box, and then peered 
 in mischievously, flourishing his lit cigar, 
 and shaking his long hair — his aunt Selina's 
 two great abominations — right in her in- 
 dignant face : but withal looking so merry 
 and good-tempered, that she shortly softened 
 into a smile. 
 
 " How handsome the boy is growing! " 
 
 " Yes," said Johanna, with a slight sigh ;
 
 186 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " and, did you notice ? how exceedingly 
 like his " 
 
 The sentence was left unfinished. Alas ! 
 if every young man, who believes his faults 
 and follies injure himself alone, could feel 
 what it must be, years afterwards, to have 
 his nearest kindred shrink from saying, as 
 the saddest, most ominous thing they could 
 say of his son, that the lad is growing " so 
 like his father ! " 
 
 It might have been — they assured each 
 other that it was — only the incessant roll, 
 roll of the street sounds below their win- 
 dows which kept the Misses Leaf awake 
 half the night of this their first night in 
 London. And when they sat down to 
 breakfast — having waited an hour vainly 
 for their nephew — it might have been only 
 the gloom of the little parlour which cast a 
 slight shadow over them all. Still, the 
 shadow was there. 
 
 It deepened, despite the sunshiny morn- 
 ing into which the last night's rain had 
 brightened, till Holborn Bars looked cheer- 
 ful, and Holborn pavement actually clean,
 
 anSTKESS AND MAID. 187 
 
 SO that, as Elizabeth said, " you might eat 
 your dinner off it," which was the one only 
 thing she condescended to approve of in 
 London. She had sat all evening mute in 
 her corner, for Miss Leaf would not send 
 her away into the terra incognita of a London 
 hotel. Ascott, at first considerably an- 
 noyed at the presence of what he called a 
 "skeleton at the feast," had afterwards 
 gro^vn good-humoured, and run on with 
 a mixture of childish glee and mannish 
 pomposity about his plans and intentions 
 — how he meant to take a house, he 
 thought, in one of the squares, or a street 
 leading out of them ; how he would put 
 up the biggest of brass plates, with " Mr. 
 Leaf, Surgeon," and soon get an extensive 
 practice, and have all his aunts to live 
 with him. And his aunts had smiled and 
 listened, fororettino; all about the silent 
 figure in the corner, who perhaps had gone 
 to sleep, or had also listened, until the time 
 came for her to go to bed. 
 
 "Elizabeth, come and look out at London." 
 So, after breakfast, she and Miss Hilary
 
 188 MISTRESS AND JMAID. 
 
 whiled away another heavy three-quarters 
 of an hour in watching and commenting 
 on the incessantly shifting crowd which 
 swept past Holborn Bars. Miss Selina 
 sometimes looked out too, but more often 
 sat fidgeting and wondering why Ascott 
 did not come ; while Miss Leaf, who never 
 fidgeted, became gradually more and more 
 silent. Her eyes were fixed on the door, 
 with an expression which, if Hilary could 
 have remembereed so far back, would have 
 been to her something, not painfully new, 
 but still more painfully old— a look branded 
 into her face by many an hour's anxious 
 listening for the footstep that never came, or 
 only came to bring distress. It was the in- 
 efiaceable token of that long, long struggle 
 between affection and conscience, pity and 
 scarcely repressible contempt, which, for 
 more than one generation, had been the 
 appointed burden of this family — at least, 
 the women of it — till sometimes it seemed 
 to hang over them like a fate. 
 
 About noon. Miss Leaf proposed calling 
 for the hotel bill. Its length so alarmed
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 189 
 
 the country ladies, that Hilar}^ suggested 
 not staying to dine, but going immediately 
 in search of lodgings. 
 
 "What, without a gentleman ! Impossible ! 
 I always understood that ladies could go 
 nowhere in London without a gentleman ! " 
 " We shall come very ill off, then, Selina. 
 But anyhow, I mean to try. You know 
 the region where, we have heard, lodgings 
 are cheapest and best — that is, best for us. 
 It cannot be far from here. Suppose I 
 start at once ? " 
 
 "What,alone?" cried Johanna, anxiously. 
 " No, dear. I '11 take the map with me, 
 and Elizabeth, She is not afraid." 
 
 Elizabeth smiled, and rose, with that air 
 of dogged devotedness with which she 
 w^ould have prepared to follow Miss Hilary 
 to the North Pole, if necessary. So, after 
 a few minutes of arguing with Selina, who 
 did not press her point overmuch, since it 
 was not herself who had to commit the 
 impropriety of the expedition ; after a 
 few minutes more of hopeless lingering 
 about — till even Miss Leaf said they had
 
 190 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 better wait no longer — mistress and maid 
 took a farewell of the two others, nearly 
 as pathetic as if they had been in reality 
 Arctic voyagers, and plunged into the 
 dusty glare and hurrying crowd of the 
 " sunny side " of Holborn in July. 
 
 A strange sensation, and yet there was 
 something exhilarating in it. The intense 
 solitude that there is in a London street, 
 these country girls — for Miss Hilary her- 
 self was no more than a girl — could not 
 as yet realise. They only felt the life of it ; 
 stirring, active, incessantly moving life — 
 even though it was of a kind that they 
 knew as little of as the crowd did* of 
 them. Nothing struck Hilary more than 
 the self-absorbed look of passers-by ; each 
 so busy on his own affairs, that, in spite of 
 Selina's alarm, they were as little noticed 
 as if they had been walking among the 
 cows and horses in Stowbury field. 
 
 Poor old Stowbury ! They felt how far 
 away they were from it, when a ragged, 
 dirty, vicious-looking girl offered them a 
 moss rose-bud for " one penny, only one
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 191 
 
 penny," which Elizabeth, lagging behind, 
 bought, and found it only a broken-oiF bud 
 stuck on to a bit of wire. 
 
 " That 's London ways, I suppose," said 
 she, severely, and became so misanthropic 
 that she would hardly vouchsafe a glance 
 to the handsome square into which they 
 turned, and merely observed of the tall 
 houses, taller than any Hilary had ever 
 seen, that she ^' wouldn't fancy running up 
 and down them stairs." 
 
 But Hilary was cheerful in spite of all. 
 She was glad to be in this region — glad to 
 find herself in the body, where in the spirit 
 she had come so many a time. The mere 
 consciousness of being there seemed to 
 refresh her. She felt sure she would be 
 much happier living in London ; that in 
 the long years to come that must be 
 borne, it would be good for her to have 
 something to do as well as to hope for ; 
 something to fight with as well as to 
 endure. Now more than ever came pulsing 
 in and out of her memory a line once re- 
 peated by Kobert Lyon in her hearing, with
 
 192 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 an observation of how " true " it was. And 
 though originally it was applied by a man 
 to a woman, and she smiled sometimes to 
 think how " unfeminine " some people — 
 Selina, for instance — would consider her 
 turning it the other way ; still she did so. 
 She believed that, for woman as for man, 
 that is the purest and noblest love which is 
 the most self-existent, most independent of 
 love returned, and which can say, each to 
 the other, equally on both sides, that the 
 whole solemn purpose of life is, under God's 
 service. 
 
 If not to win, to feel more worthy thee. 
 
 Such thoughts made her step firmer and 
 her heart lighter, so that she hardly noticed 
 the distance they must have walked, till the 
 close London air began to oppress her, and 
 the smooth, glaring London pavements made 
 her Stowbury feet ache sorely. 
 
 " Are you tired, Elizabeth ? Well, we '11 
 rest soon. There must be lodgings near 
 here. Only I can't quite make out — " 
 
 As Miss Hilary looked up to the name of
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 193 
 
 the street, the maid noticed what a glow 
 came into her mistress's face, pale and tired 
 as it was. Just then a church clock struck 
 the quarter-hour. 
 
 '• That must be St. Pancras. And this 
 — yes, this is certainly Burton Street, 
 Burton Crescent." 
 
 "I'm sure missus wouldn't like to live 
 there," observed Elizabeth, eyeing uneasily 
 the gloomy rez-de-chaussee, familiar to 
 many a generation of struggling respect- 
 ability, where, in the decadence of the 
 season, every second house bore the an- 
 nouncement, " Apartments furnished." 
 
 "Xo," Miss Hilary replied, absently. 
 Yet she continued to walk up and down, 
 the whole length of the street ; then passed 
 out into the dreary, deserted-looking Cres- 
 cent, where the trees were already begin- 
 ning to fade ; not, however, into the bright 
 autumn tint of country woods, but into a 
 premature withering, ugly and sad to be- 
 hold. 
 
 " I am glad he is not here — right glad ! " 
 thought Hilary, as she realised the unutter- 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 able dreariness of those years when Robert 
 Lyon lived and studied in his garret from 
 month's end to month's end — these few 
 dusty trees being his sole memento of the 
 pleasant country in which he had been 
 brought up, and which she knew he so 
 passionately loved. Now, she could under- 
 stand that " calenture " which he had some- 
 times jestingly alluded to as coming upon 
 him at times, when he felt literally sick for 
 the sight of a green field or a hedge full of 
 birds. She wondered whether the same 
 feeling would ever come upon her, in this 
 strange desert of London, the vastness of 
 which grew upon her every hour. 
 
 She was glad he was away ; yes, heart- 
 glad ! And yet, if, this minute, she could 
 only have seen him coming round the Cres- 
 cent, have met his smile, and the firm, warm 
 clasp of his hand — 
 
 For an instant there rose up in her one 
 of those wild rebellious outcries against 
 fate, when to have to waste years of this 
 brief life of ours in the sort of semi-exist- 
 ence that living is, apart from the treasure
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 195 
 
 of the heart and the delight of the eyes, 
 seems so cruelly, cruelly hard ! 
 
 ^' Miss Hilary?" 
 
 She started, and " put herself under lock 
 and key " immediately. 
 
 " Miss Hilary ; you do look so tired ! " 
 
 " Do I ? Then we will go and sit down 
 in this baker's shop, and get rested and 
 fed. We cannot afford to wear ourselves 
 out, you know. We have a great deal to 
 do to-day." 
 
 More, indeed, than she calculated, for 
 they walked up one street and down 
 another, investigating at least twenty lodg- 
 ings before any appeared which seemed fit 
 for them. Yet some place must be found 
 where Johanna's poor tired head could rest 
 that night. At last, completely exhausted, 
 with that oppressive exhaustion which 
 seems to crush mind as well as body after 
 a day's wandering in London, Hilary's 
 courage began to ebb. Oh, for an arm to 
 lean on^ a voice to listen for, a brave heart 
 to come to her side, saying, " Do not be 
 afraid, there are two of us ! " And she 
 
 o2
 
 196 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 yearned, with an absolutely sick yearning, 
 such as only a woman who now and then 
 feels the utter helplessness of her woman- 
 hood can know, for the only arm she cared 
 to lean on, the only voice dear enough to 
 bring her comfort, the only heart that she 
 felt she could trust. 
 
 Poor Hilary ! And yet why pity her ? 
 To her three alternatives could but happen : 
 were Eobert Lyon true to her, she would 
 be his, entirely and devotedly, to the end of 
 her days ; did he forsake her, she would 
 forgive him ; should he die, she would be 
 faithful to him eternally. Love of this 
 kind may know anguish, but not the sort 
 of anguish that lesser and weaker loves do. 
 If it is certain of nothing else, it can always 
 be certain of itself. 
 
 Its will is strong : 
 
 It suffers ; but it cannot suffer long. 
 
 And even in its utmost pangs is an under- 
 lying peace which often approaches to abso- 
 lute joy. 
 
 Hilary roused herself, and bent her mind
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 197 
 
 steadily on lodgings till she discovered one, 
 from the parlour of which you could see 
 the trees of Burton Crescent, and hear the 
 sound of St. Pancras clock. 
 
 " I think we may do here — at least for 
 a while," said she cheerfully; and then 
 Elizabeth heard her inquiring if an extra 
 bedroom could be had if necessary. 
 
 There was only one small attic. "Ascott 
 never could put up Avith that," said Hilary, 
 half to herself. Then suddenly — "I think 
 I will go and see Ascott before I decide. 
 Elizabeth, will you go with me or remain 
 here?" 
 
 "I '11 go with you, if you please, Miss 
 Hilary." (" If you please," sounded not 
 unlike " if / please," and Elizabeth had 
 gloomed over a little.) " Is Mr. Ascott to 
 live with us ? " asked she, after a pause. 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 No more words were interchanged till 
 they reached Gower Street, when Miss 
 Hilary observed, with evident surprise, 
 what a handsome street it was. 
 
 "I must have made some mistake. He
 
 198 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 never can be lodging here. Still we will 
 find out the number he mentioned, and 
 inquire." 
 
 No, there was no mistake. Mr. Ascott 
 Leaf had lodged there for three months, 
 but had given up his rooms that very- 
 morning. 
 
 " Where had he gone to ? " 
 
 The servant — a London lodging-house 
 servant all over — didn't know ; but she 
 fetched the landlady, who was after the 
 same pattern as the dozen London land- 
 ladies with whom Hilary had that day 
 made acquaintance, only a little more 
 Cockney, smirking, dirty, and tawdrily 
 fine. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Leaf had gone, and he hadn't 
 left no address. Youno; colleo-e £!:entlemen 
 often found it convenient to leave no ad- 
 dress. P'raps he would, if he 'd known 
 there would be a young lady to see him." 
 
 "I am Mr. Leafs aunt," said Hilary, 
 turning as hot as fire. 
 
 *'0h, in-deed," was the answer, with 
 civil incredulousness.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 199 
 
 But the woman was sharp of perception 
 — as often cheated London landladies learn 
 to be. After looking keenly at mistress 
 and maid — especially at the latter, who 
 looked so intensely, solidly ^'respectable," 
 she changed her tone ; nay, even launched 
 out into praises of her late lodger: what 
 a pleasant gentleman he was, what good 
 company he kept, and how he had pro- 
 mised to recommend her apartments to his 
 friends. 
 
 " And as for the little some'at of rent, 
 Miss — tell him it makes no matter, he can 
 pay me when he likes. If he don't call 
 soon, p'raps I might make bold to send his 
 trunk and his books over to Mr. Ascott's of 
 — dear me, I forget the number and the 
 square — 
 
 Hilary, unsuspiciously, supplied both. 
 
 " Yes, that 's it — the old gen'leman as 
 Mr. Leaf went to dine with every other 
 Sunday ; a very rich old gentleman, who, 
 he says, is to leave him all his money. 
 Maybe a relation of yours, Miss ? " 
 
 " No," said Hilary ; and adding some-
 
 200 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 thing about the landlady's hearing from 
 Mr. Leaf very soon, she hurried out of 
 the house, Elizabeth following. 
 
 " "Won't you be tired if you walk so fast, 
 Miss Hilary?" 
 
 Hilary stopped, choking. Helplessly she 
 looked up and down the forlorn, wide, glar- 
 ing, dusty street ; now sinking into the 
 dull shadow of a London afternoon. 
 
 " Let us go home ! " And at the word 
 a sob burst out — ^just one passionate, pent- 
 up sob. No more. She could not afford 
 to waste her strength in crying. 
 
 ^' As you say, Elizabeth, I am getting 
 tired ; and that will not do. Let me consider ; 
 something must be decided." And she stood 
 still, passing her hand over her hot brow 
 and eyes. " I will go back and take the 
 lodgings, leave you there to make all com- 
 fortable, and then fetch my sisters from 
 the hotel. But stay — first, I have forgotten 
 something." 
 
 She returned to the house in Gower 
 Street, and wrote on one of her cards an 
 address — the only permanent address she
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 201 
 
 could think of — that of the City broker who 
 was in the habit of paying them their yearly 
 income of £50. 
 
 " If any creditors inquire for Mr. Leaf, 
 give them this, where they can always 
 write, and it will find him. His friends 
 may hear of him at the London University." 
 
 " Thank you, ma'am," replied the now 
 civil landlady. " Lideed, I wasn't afraid 
 of the young gentleman giving us the slip. 
 For though he was careless in his bills, he 
 was ever}^ inch the gentleman. And I 
 wouldn't object to take him in again. Or 
 p'raps you yourself, ma'am, might be a- 
 wanting rooms." 
 
 "No, I thank you. Good morning." 
 And Hilary hurried away. 
 
 Xot a word did she say to Elizabeth, or 
 Elizabeth to her, till they got into the dull, 
 dingy parlour — henceforth to be their sole 
 apology for " home : " and then she only 
 talked about domestic arrangements: talked 
 fast and eagerly, trying to escape the affec- 
 tionate eyes which she knew were also 
 sharp and keen. Only to escape them —
 
 202 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 not to blind them, even if she herself had 
 not been too honest to do it ; she had long 
 ago found out that Elizabeth was too quick- 
 witted to be deceived in anything that con- 
 cerned "the family." She felt convinced 
 the girl had heard and comprehended every 
 syllable that passed at Ascott's lodgings ; 
 that she knew all that was to be known, 
 and guessed what was to be feared, as well 
 as her mistress. 
 
 " Elizabeth " — she said at last, though 
 she hesitated long before she did say it — 
 " remember we are all strangers in London, 
 and family matters are best kept within 
 the family. Do not mention eithei: in 
 writing home, or to anybody hereabout — 
 about — " 
 
 She could not name Ascott ; she felt so 
 horribly ashamed.
 
 203 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Living in lodgings, not temporarily, but 
 permanently, sitting down to make one's 
 only "home" in Mrs. Jones's parlour or 
 Mrs. Smith's first-floor, of which not a stick 
 or a stone that one looks at is one's own, 
 and whence one may be evicted or evade, 
 with a week's notice or a week's rent, any 
 day — this sort of life is natural and even 
 delightful to some people. There are those 
 who, like strawberry-plants, are of such an 
 errant disposition, that, grow them where 
 you will, they will soon absorb all the plea- 
 santness of their habitat, and begin casting 
 out runners elsewhere; nay, if not fre- 
 quently transplanted, would actually wither 
 and die. Of such are the pioneers of society 
 — the emigrants, the tourists, the travellers 
 round the world ; and great is the advan-
 
 204 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 tage tlie world derives from them, active, 
 energetic, and impulsive as they are — unless, 
 indeed, their talent for incessant locomotion 
 degenerates into rootless restlessness, and 
 they remain for ever rolling stones, gather- 
 ing no moss, and acquiring gradually a 
 smooth, hard surface, which adheres to 
 nothing, and to which nobody dare venture 
 to adhere. 
 
 But there are others possessing in a pain- 
 ful degree this sad quality of adhesiveness, 
 to whom the smallest change is obnoxious ; 
 who like drinking out of a particular cup, 
 and sitting in a particular chair ; to whom 
 even a variation in the position of furniture 
 is unpleasant. Of course, this peculiarity 
 has its bad side, and yet it is not in itself 
 mean or ignoble. For is not adhesiveness, 
 faithfulness, constancy — call it what you 
 will — at the root of all citizenship, clan- 
 ship, and family love ? Is it not the same 
 feeling which, granting they remain at all, 
 makes old friendships dearer than any new? 
 Nay, to go to the very sacredest and closest 
 bond, is it not that which makes an old
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 205 
 
 man see to the last in his old wife's faded 
 face the beauty which perhaps nobody ever 
 saw except himself, but which he sees and 
 delights in still, simply because it is fami- 
 liar, and his own ? 
 
 To people v/ho possess a large share of 
 this rare (shall I say, fatal ?) characteristic 
 of adhesiveness, living in lodgings is about 
 the saddest life under the sun. Whether 
 some dim foreboding of this fact crossed 
 Ehzabeth's mind, as she stood at the win- 
 dow watching for her mistresses' first arri- 
 val at " home," it is impossible to say. She 
 could feel, though she was not accustomed 
 to analyse her feelings. But she looked 
 dull and sad — not cross, — even Ascott 
 could not have accused her of " savage- 
 ness." 
 
 And yet she had been somewhat tried. 
 First, in going out what she termed " mar- 
 keting," she had traversed a waste of streets, 
 got lost several times, and returned with 
 light weight in her butter, and sand in her 
 moist sugar; also with the conviction that 
 London tradesmen were the greatest rogues
 
 206 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 alive. Secondly, a pottle of strawberries, 
 which she had bought with her own money, 
 to grace the tea-table with the only fruit 
 Miss Leaf cared for, had turned out a large 
 delusion, big and beautiful at top, and all 
 below small, crushed, and stale. She had 
 thrown it indignantly, pottle and all, into 
 the kitchen fire. 
 
 Thirdly, she had had a war with the land- 
 lady, partly on the subject of their j&re, which, 
 with her Stowbury notions on the subject 
 of coals, seemed wretchedly mean and small, 
 and partly on the question of table-cloths at 
 tea, which Mrs. Jones had " never heard of," 
 especially when the use of plate and linen 
 was included in the rent. And the dingi- 
 ness of the article produced at last out of 
 an omnium-gatherum sort of kitchen- cup- 
 board, made an ominous impression upon 
 the country girl, accustomed to clean, tidy 
 country ways — where the kitchen was kept 
 as neat as the parlour, and the bed-rooms 
 were not a whit behind the sitting-rooms in 
 comfort and orderliness. Here it seemed 
 as if, supposing people could show a few
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 207 
 
 respectable living-rooms, they were content 
 to sleep anywhere, and cook anyhow, oat of 
 anything, in the midst of any quantity of 
 confusion and dirt. Elizabeth set all this 
 down as "London," and hated it accord- 
 ingly- 
 
 She had tried to ease her mind by ar- 
 ranging and re-arranging the furniture — 
 regular lodging-house furniture — table, six 
 chairs, horse-hair sofa, a whatnot, and the 
 chiffonnier, with a tea-caddy upon it, of 
 which the respective keys had been solemnly 
 presented to Miss Hilary. But still the 
 parlour looked homeless and bare ; and the 
 yellowish paper on the walls, the large pat- 
 terned, many-coloured Kidderminster on 
 the floor, gave an involuntary sense of dis- 
 comfort and dreariness. Besides, No. 15 
 was on the shady side of the street — cheap 
 lodgings always are ; and no one who has 
 not lived in the like lodgings — not a house 
 — can imagine what it is to inhabit per- 
 petually one room where the sunshine just 
 peeps in for an hour a day, and vanishes by 
 eleven a.m., leaving behind in winter a chill
 
 208 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 dampness, and in summer a heavy, dusty 
 atmosphere, that, in spite of all efforts to 
 shake it off, weighs like lead on the spirits. 
 iSfo wonder that, as is statistically known 
 and proved, cholera stalks, fever rages, and 
 the registrar's list is always swelled, along 
 the shady side of a London street. 
 
 Elizabeth felt this, though she had not 
 the dimmest idea why. She stood watching 
 the sunset light fade out of the topmost 
 windows of the opposite house — ghostly 
 reflection of some sunset over fields and 
 trees far away ; and she listened to the 
 long, monotonous cry melting away round 
 the Crescent, and beginning again at the 
 other end of the street — " Straw-berries 1 
 straw-berries!" Also, with an eye to to- 
 morrow's Sunday dinner, she investigated 
 the cart of the tired costermonger, who 
 crawled along beside his equally tired don- 
 key, reiterating at times, in tones hoarse 
 with a day's bawling, his dreary " Cauli- 
 flow-er ! cauli-flow-er ! — Fine new peas, 
 sixpnece peck ! " 
 
 But, alas ! the peas were neither fine nor
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 209 
 
 new; and the cauliflowers were regular 
 Saturday night's cauliflowers. Besides, 
 Elizabeth suddenly doubted whether she 
 had any right, unordered, to buy these 
 things, which, from being at Stowbur}^ 
 common garden necessaries, had here, in 
 London, become expensive luxuries. This 
 thought, with some others that it led to, 
 her unwonted state of idleness, and the 
 dulncss of everything about her — what is so 
 dull as a " quiet " London street on a sum- 
 mer evening? — actually made Elizabeth 
 stand, motionless and meditative, for a 
 quarter of an hour. 
 
 Then she started to hear two cabs drive 
 up to the door ; the " family " had at length 
 arrived. 
 
 Ascott was there too. Two new port- 
 manteaus and a splendid hat-box cast 
 ignominy upon his aunt's poor Stowbury 
 luggage ; and — Elizabeth's sharp eyes no- 
 ticed — there was also his trunk which she had 
 seen lying detained for rent in his Gower 
 Street lodgings. Consequently, somehow 
 or by somebody, the arrears must have been 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 paid. But the young man himself looked 
 quite easy and comfortable ; handed out his 
 aunt Johanna, ordered the luggage about, 
 and paid the cabmen with such a magnifi- 
 cent air, that they touched their hats to him, 
 and winked at one another as much as to 
 say, " That 's a real gentleman ! " 
 
 In which statement the landlady evidently 
 coincided, and courtesied low, when Miss 
 Leaf, introducing him as "my nephew," 
 hoped that a room could be found for him. 
 Which at last there was, by his appropriat- 
 ing Miss Leafs, while she and Hilary con- 
 tented themselves with one at the top of the 
 house. But they agreed, Ascott must have 
 a good airy room to study in. 
 
 " You know, my dear boy," said his aunt 
 Johanna to him — and at her tender tone 
 he looked a little downcast, as when he was 
 a small fellow and had been forgiven some- 
 thing — " you know you will have to work 
 very hard^ — for all our sakes." 
 
 " All right, aunt ! I 'm your man for 
 work ! This will be a jolly room ; and I can 
 smoke up the chimney capitally."
 
 MISTKESS AKD MAID. 211 
 
 So they came down stairs quite cheerfully, 
 and Ascott applied himself with the best of 
 appetites to what he called a " hungry " tea. 
 True, the ham, which Elizabeth had to fetch 
 from an eating-house hard by, cost two shil- 
 lings a pound, and the eggs, w^hich caused her 
 another war with the landlady over the re- 
 lio^htino; of the fire to boil them, were dis- 
 missed by the young gentleman as " horrid 
 stale." Still, woman-like, when there is a 
 man in the question, his aunts let him have 
 his way. It seemed as if they had resolved 
 to try their utmost to make the new home 
 to ^vhich he came, or rather was driven, a 
 pleasant home, and to bind him to it with 
 cords of love, the only cords worth any- 
 thing, though sometimes — Heaven knows 
 why — even they fail, and are snapped and 
 thrown aside like straws. 
 
 Whenever Elizabeth went in and out of 
 the parlour, she always heard lively talk 
 going on among the family : Ascott making 
 his jokes, telling about his college life, and 
 planning his life to come, as a surgeon in 
 full practice, on the most extensive scale. 
 
 p 2
 
 212 MISTRESS AND MATD. 
 
 And when she brought in the chamber 
 candles, she saw hhn kiss his aunts affec- 
 tionately, and even help his aunt Johanna 
 — who looked frightfully pale and tired, 
 but smiling still — to her bed-room door. 
 
 " You '11 not sit up long, my dear ? No 
 reading to-night ? " said she, anxiously. 
 
 " Not a bit of it. And I '11 be up with 
 the lark to-morrow morning. I really will, 
 auntie. I 'm going to turn over a new 
 leaf, you know." 
 
 She smiled again at the immemorial 
 joke, kissed and blessed him, and the door 
 shut upon her and Hilary. 
 
 Ascott descended to the parlour, threw 
 himself on the sofa with an air of great 
 relief, and an exclamation of satisfaction, 
 that " the women " were all gone. He did 
 not perceive Elizabeth, who, hidden behind, 
 was kneeling to arrange something in the 
 chiffonnier, till she rose up and proceeded 
 to fasten the parlour shutters. 
 
 " Hollo ! are you there ? Come, I '11 do 
 that when I go to bed. You may ' slope,' 
 if you like."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 213 
 
 ^- Eh, sir?" 
 
 " Slope, mizzle, cut your stick ; don't 
 you understand ? Anyhow, don't stop 
 here bothering me." 
 
 "I don't mean to," replied Elizabeth; 
 gravely, rather than gruffly, as if she had 
 made up her mind to things as they were, 
 and was determined to be a belligerent party 
 no longer. Besides, she was older now : 
 too old to have things forgiven to her that 
 might be overlooked in a child ; and she 
 had received a lono; lecture from Miss 
 Hilary on the necessity of showing respect 
 to Mr. Ascott, or Mr. Leaf, as it was now 
 decided he Avas to be called, in his dignity 
 and responsibility as the only masculine 
 head of the family. 
 
 As he lay and lounged there, with 
 his eyes lazily sliut, Elizabeth stood a 
 minute gazing at him. Then, stead- 
 fast in her new good behaviour, she in- 
 quired " if he wanted anything more to- 
 night?" 
 
 " Confound you ! No ! Yes ; stop." And 
 the young man took a furtive investigation
 
 214 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 of the plain, honest face, and not over- 
 graceful, ultra-provincial figure, which still 
 characterised his aunt's " South Sea Is- 
 lander." 
 
 " I say, Elizabeth, I want you to do 
 something for me." He spoke so civilly, 
 almost coaxingly, that Elizabeth turned 
 round surprised. " Would you just go 
 and ask the landlady if she has got such a 
 thing as a latch-key ? " 
 
 "A what, sir?" 
 
 " A latch-key — a — oh, she knows. 
 Every London house has it. Tell her I '11 
 take care of it, and lock the front-door all 
 right. She needn't be afraid of thieves." 
 
 " Yery well, sir." 
 
 Elizabeth went, but shortly reappeared 
 with the information that Mrs. Jones had 
 gone to bed ; in the kitchen, she supposed, 
 as she could not get in. But she laid on 
 the table the large street-door key. 
 
 " Perhaps that 's what you wanted, Mr. 
 Leaf. Though I think you needn't be the 
 least afraid of robbers, for there's three 
 bolts, and a chain besides."
 
 MISTKESS AND MAID. 215 
 
 " All riglit," cried Ascott, smothering 
 down a laugh. "Thank you I That's for 
 you," throwing a half-crown across the table. 
 
 Elizabeth took it up demurely, and put it 
 down again. Perhaps she did not like him 
 well enough to receive presents from him ; 
 perhaps she thought, being an honest-minded 
 girl, that a young man who could not pay his 
 rent had no business to be giving away half- 
 crowns ; or else she herself had not been, so 
 much as many servants are, in the habit of 
 taking them. For Miss Hilary had put into 
 Elizabeth some of her own feeling as to this 
 questionable habit of paying an inferior with 
 money for any little civility or kindness 
 which, from an equal, would be accepted 
 simply as kindness, and only requited with 
 thanks. Anyhow, the coin remained on the 
 table, and the door was just shutting upon 
 Elizabeth, when the young gentleman 
 turned round again. 
 
 " I say, since my aunts are so horridly 
 timid of robbers and such like, you 'd 
 better not tell them anything about the 
 latch-key."
 
 216 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Elizabeth stood a minute perplexed, and 
 then replied briefly: " Miss Hilary isn't, a 
 bit timid ; and I always tells Miss Hilary 
 everything." 
 
 Nevertheless, though she Avas so ignorant 
 of worldly ways as never even to have heard 
 of a latch-key, she had the wit to see that 
 all was not rig] it. She even lay a"\vake, in 
 her closet off Miss Leaf's room, whence she 
 could hear the murmur of her tivo mistresses 
 talking together, long after they retired — 
 lay broad awake for an hour or more, trying 
 to put things together — the sad things that 
 she felt certain must have happened that day 
 to her mistresses and their nephew. Also, 
 wondering what Mr. Ascott could possibly 
 Y/ant with the key ; why he had asked her 
 about it, instead of telling his aunts at 
 once ; and why he had treated her in the 
 matter with such astonishing civility. 
 
 It may be said, a servant had no busi- 
 ness to think about these things, to criticise 
 her young master's proceedings, or wonder 
 why her mistresses were sad : that her duty 
 was merely to go about her work like an
 
 MISTKESS AXD MAID. 217 
 
 automaton, and not speculate upon any- 
 thing beyond it, being " only a servant." I 
 can but answer to those who like such 
 service, let them have it ! and as they sow 
 they will assuredly reap. 
 
 But long after Elizabeth, young and 
 hearty, was soundly snoring on her hard, 
 cramped bed, Johanna and Hilary Leaf, 
 after a brief mutual pretence of sleep, soon 
 discovered by both, lay consulting toge- 
 ther over ways and means. How could 
 the family expenses, beginning with twenty- 
 iive shillings per week as rent, possibly be 
 met by the only actual certain family in- 
 come, their fifty pounds per annum from a 
 morto:ao;e ? For the Misses Leaf were of 
 that old-fashioned stamp which believed 
 that to reckon an income by mere proba- 
 bilities is either insanity or dishonesty. 
 
 Common arithmetic soon proved that 
 this fifty pounds a year could not maintain 
 them ; in fact they must soon draw on the 
 little sum — already dipped into to-day, for 
 Ascott's rent — which had been produced by 
 the sale of the Stowbury furniture. That sale,
 
 218 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 they now found, liad been a mistake: so great 
 ■was the expense of furnished lodgings ; and 
 they half feared whether the whole change 
 from Stowbury to London had not also 
 been a mistake — one of those sad errors in 
 judgement which we all commit sometimes, 
 and have to abide by, and make the best 
 of, and learn from if we can. Happy those 
 to whom " Dinna greet ower spilt milk " — 
 a proverb wise as cheerful, which Hilary, 
 knowing well who it came from, repeated 
 to Johanna to comfort her — teaches a 
 second brave lesson, how to avoid spilling 
 the milk a second time. 
 
 And then they consulted anxiously about 
 what was to be done to earn money. 
 
 Teaching presented itself as the only 
 resource. In those days women's rights had 
 not been discussed so freely as at present. 
 There was a strong feeling that the principal 
 thing required of us was not rights, but 
 duties — duties owed to ourselves, our home, 
 our family and friends. There was a deep 
 conviction. — now, alas ! slowly disappear- 
 ing — that a woman, be she single or
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 219 
 
 married, sliould never throw herself out of 
 the safe circle of domestic life, till the last 
 extremity of necessity ; that it is wiser to 
 keep, or help to keep, a home, by learning 
 how to economise income, cook dinners, 
 make and mend clothes, and by the law that 
 " prevention is better than cure," study 
 all preservative means of holding a family 
 together, as women, and women alone can 
 — ay, far wiser than to dash into men's 
 sphere of trades and professions, thereby, 
 in most instances, fighting an unequal 
 battle, and coming out of it maimed, 
 broken, unsexed ; turned into beings that 
 are neither men nor women, 'with the faults 
 and corresponding sufferings of both, and 
 the compensations of neither. 
 
 " I don't see," said* poor Hilary, " what 
 I can do but teach. And oh, if I could 
 only get daily pupils, so that I might be 
 able to come home of nights, and creep into 
 the fireside; and have time to mend the 
 stockings and look after Ascott's linen, so 
 that he need not be so awfully extrava- 
 gant in his clothes."
 
 220 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 "It is Ascott who ought to earn the 
 family income, and have his aunt to keep 
 house for him," observed Johanna. " That 
 was the way in my time ; and I beheve it 
 is the right way. The man ought to go 
 out into the world and earn the money ; the 
 woman ought to stay at home and v/isely 
 expend it." 
 
 " And yet that way is not always pos- 
 sible. We know, of ourselves, instances 
 where it was not." 
 
 ''Ah, yes!" assented Johanna, sighing. 
 For she, far more than Hilary, viewed tlie 
 present family circumstances in the light of 
 past family history — a light too sad almost 
 to bear looking at. " But in ours, as in 
 most similar cases, was a something not 
 right, something which forced men and 
 women out of their natural places. If our 
 father, and Henry, had been what they ought 
 to have been — But they are gone. No ! " 
 continued Miss Leaf, earnestly ; '' it may 
 be sometimes a mournful inevitable neces- 
 sity, but I never can believe it to be a right 
 thing, or a thing that should be volun-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 221 
 
 tarily imitated, for women to go knocking 
 about the world like men — and — " 
 
 " And I am not intending to do any such 
 thing," said Hilary, half amused. " I am 
 only going to try every rational means of 
 earning a little money to keep the family 
 till such time as Ascott can decide on his 
 future, and find a suitable opportunity for 
 establishing himself in practice. In some 
 of the new neio'hbourhoods about London 
 he says he has a capital chance ; he will 
 immediately set about inquiries. A good 
 idea, don't you think ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Johanna, briefly. But they 
 did not discuss this as they had discussed 
 their own plans; and, it was noticeable, 
 they never even referred to, as a portion of 
 the family finances, that pound a week 
 which, with many regrets that it was so 
 small, Ascott had promised to pay to his 
 aunts, as his contribution to the expenses 
 of the household. 
 
 And now the dawn was beo-inninor to 
 break, and the lively London sparrows to 
 chirp in the chimneys. So tlilary insisted
 
 222 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 on their talking no more, but going to sleep 
 properly. 
 
 " Very well. Good night, my blessing ! " 
 said Johanna, softly. And perhaps indeed 
 her " blessing," with that strange bright 
 courage of her own — years after, when 
 Hilary looked back upon her old self, how 
 utterly mad this courage seemed ! — had 
 taken the weight of care from the elder and 
 feebler heart, so that Johanna turned round 
 and soon slept. 
 
 But long after, till the dawn melted into 
 perfect daylight, did Hilary lie, open-eyed, 
 listening to quarter after quarter of the 
 loud St. Pancras clock. Brave she was, 
 this little woman, fully as brave and cheer- 
 ful-hearted as, for Johanna's sake, she made 
 herself out to be ; and now that the para- 
 lysed monotony of her Stowbury life was 
 gone, and that she was in the midst of the 
 whirl of London, she felt doubly bright and 
 brave. The sense of resistance, of dogged 
 perseverance, of '^ fighting it out " to the 
 last, was strong in her, stronger than in 
 most women, or else it was the reflection in
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 223 
 
 her own of that nature — manly and true — 
 which was her ideal of everything great and 
 good. 
 
 " Xo," she said to herself, after thinking 
 over for the hundredth time every diffi- 
 culty that lay before them all — meeting 
 and looking in the^face every wild beast in 
 the way, even that terrible beast which, 
 though often approaching, had never yet 
 visited the Leaf family, " the wolf at the 
 door " — " No, I don't think I am afraid. I 
 think I never shall be afraid of anything in 
 
 this world, if only — only " 
 
 '' If only he loves me." That was it, 
 which broke off, unspoken ; the helpless 
 woman's cry — the cruel craving for the 
 one deepest want of a woman's life — 
 deeper than the same want in man's, or in 
 most men's, because it is more individual — 
 not " If only I am loved," but " If only he 
 loves me." And as Hilary resolutely shut 
 her eyes, and forced her aching head to 
 cease thinking, sharper than ever, as always 
 was the case wd:ien she felt weary, mentally 
 or physically, came her longing for the
 
 224 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 hand to cling to, the breast to lean against 
 — the heart at once strong and tender, 
 which even the bravest woman feels at times 
 she piteously needs. A heart which can 
 comfort and uphold her, with the strength, 
 not of another woman like herself, but of a 
 man, encouraging her, as perhaps her very 
 weakness encourages him, to endure a little 
 longer. But this support, in any shape, 
 from any man, the women of the Leaf family 
 had never known. 
 
 The nearest approach to it were those 
 letters from India, which had become, 
 Johanna sometimes smilingly said, a family 
 institution. For they were family letters ; 
 there was no mystery about them; they 
 were passed from one to the other, and 
 commented on in perfect freedom — so 
 freely indeed, that Selina had never pene- 
 trated into the secret of them at all. But 
 their unvarying punctuality, their faithful 
 remembrance of the smallest things con- 
 cerning the past, their strong interest in 
 anything and everything belonging to the 
 present of these his old friends, were to
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 225 
 
 the other two sisters sufficient proof how 
 thoroughly the writer might be believed in. 
 
 Hilary did believe, and in her perfect 
 trust was perfect rest. Whether he ever 
 married her or not, she felt sure, surer and 
 surer every day, that to her had been 
 sent that best blessing — the lot of so few 
 women — a thoroughly good man to be 
 loved by and to love. 
 
 So with his face in her memory, and the 
 sound of his voice in her ear, as distinctly 
 as if it had been only yesterday that he said, 
 *' You must trust me, Hilary," she whispered 
 to herself, " I do, Robert, I do ! " and went 
 to sleep as peacefully as a childv^ 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 226 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 With a sublime indifFerence to popular 
 superstition, or rather because they did not 
 think of it till all their arrangements were 
 completed, the Misses Leaf had accomplished 
 their grand Hegira on a Friday. Conse- 
 quently, their first day at No. 15 was 
 Sunday. 
 
 Sunday in London always strikes a 
 provincial person. It Im^ two such dis- 
 tinct sides. First, the eminently re- 
 spectable, decorous, religious side, which 
 Hilary and Selina observed, when, about 
 eleven a.m., they joined the stream of well- 
 dressed, well-to-do-looking people, solitary 
 or in families, who poured forth from hand- 
 some houses in streets or squares, to form 
 the crowded congregation of St. Pancras 
 Church. The opposite side Hilary also
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 227 
 
 saw, when Ascott, who, in spite of his deck- 
 ration overnight, had not risen in time for 
 breakfast, penitently coaxed his " pretty 
 aunt " to let him take her to the afternoon 
 service in Westminster Abbey. They 
 wended their way through Tottenham 
 Court Road, Oxford Street, Regent Street, 
 and across the Park, finding shops open, or 
 half open, vehicles plying, and people stream- 
 ino^ down each side of the streets. 
 
 Hilary did not quite like it, and yet her 
 heart was tender over the poor hard- 
 worked-looking Cockneys, who seemed so 
 excessively to enjoy their Sunday stroll, 
 their Sunday mouthful of fresh air ; or the 
 small Sunday threat their sickly, under- 
 sized children had in lying on the grass, 
 and feeding the ducks in St. James's Park. 
 
 She tried to talk the matter out with 
 Ascott, but though he listened politely for 
 a minute or two, he evidently took no in- 
 terest in such things. Nor did he even 
 in the grand old Abbey, with its tree- 
 like arched avenues of immemorial stone, 
 its painted windows, through which the 
 q2
 
 228 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 coloured sunshine made a sort of heavenly 
 mist of light, and its innumerable graves 
 of generations below. Hilary woke from 
 her trance of solemn delight to find her 
 nephew amusing himself with staring at 
 the people about him, making sotto voce 
 quizzical remarks upon them, in the inter- 
 vals of the service, and, finally, the instant 
 it was ended, starting up in extreme satis- 
 faction, evidently feehng ti^at he had done 
 his duty, and that it had been, to use his 
 own phrase, " a confounded bore." 
 
 Yet he meant to be kind to his pretty 
 aunt — told her he liked to walk with her, 
 because she was so pretty, praised her dress, 
 so neat and tasteful, though a little old- 
 fashioned. But he would soon alter that, 
 he said; he would dress all his aunts in 
 silk and satin, and give them a carriage to 
 ride in; there should be no end to their 
 honour and prosperity. Nay, coming home, 
 he took her a long way round — or she 
 thought so, being tired — to show her the 
 sort of house he meant to have. Yery 
 grand it seemed to her Stowbury eyes, with
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 229 
 
 pillars and a flight of steps up to the door, 
 more fit, she ventured to suggest, for a 
 retired merchant than a struggling young 
 surgeon. 
 
 '' Oh, but Ave dare not show the struggle, 
 or nobody would ever trust us," said Ascott, 
 with a knowing look. '' Bless you, many a 
 youDg fellow sets up a house, and even a 
 carriao^e, on tick, and drives and drives 
 about till he drives himself into a practice. 
 The world's all a make-believe, and you 
 must meet humbug with humbug. That 's 
 the way, I assure you. Aunt Hilary." 
 
 Aunt Hilary fixed her honest eyes on the 
 lad's face — the lad, so little younger than 
 herself, and yet wdio at times, when he let 
 out sayings such as this, seemed so awfully, 
 so pitifully old ; and she felt thankful that, 
 at all risks and costs, they had come to 
 London to be beside him, to help him, to 
 save him, if he needed saving, as women 
 only can. For, after all, he v/as but a boy. 
 And though, as he walked by her side, 
 stalwart and manly, the thought smote her 
 painfully that many a young fellow of bis
 
 230 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 age was the stay and bread-winner of some 
 widowed mother or sister, nay, even of wife 
 and child, still she repeated, cheerfully, 
 " What can one expect from him ? He is 
 only a boy." 
 
 God help the women who, for those be- 
 longing to them — husbands, fathers, bro- 
 thers, lovers, sons — have, ever so tenderly, 
 to apologis3. 
 
 When they came in sight of St. Pancras 
 Church, Ascott said, suddenly, " I think 
 you '11 know your way now. Aunt Hilary." 
 
 " Certainly. Why ?" 
 
 " Because — you wouldn't be vexed if I 
 left you? I have an engagement — some 
 fellows that I dine with, out at Hampstead 
 or Kichmond, or Blackwall, every Sunday. 
 Nothing wicked, I assure you. And you 
 know it 's capital for one's health to get a 
 Sunday in fresh air." 
 
 '' Yes ; but Aunt Johanna will be sorry 
 to miss you." 
 
 " Will she? Oh, you '11 smooth her down. 
 Stay ! Tell her I shall be back to tea." 
 
 " We shall be having tea directly."
 
 MISTEESS AKD MAID. 231 
 
 " I declare I had quite forgotten. Aunt 
 Hilary, you must change your hours. They 
 don't suit me at all. Xo men can ever 
 stand early dinners. Bye, bye ! "Y ou are the 
 very prettiest auntie. Be sure you get home 
 safe. Hollo, there ! That 's my omnibus." 
 
 He jumped on the top of it, and was 
 off. 
 
 Aunt Hilary stood quite confounded, and 
 striving against one of those strange sink- 
 in ofs of the heart which had come over her 
 several times this day. It was not that 
 Ascott showed any unkindness — that there 
 was any actual badness in him. Still there 
 was a want — want of earnestness, steadfast- 
 ness, truthfulness, a something more disco- 
 verable as the lack of something else than 
 as aught in itself tangibly and perceptibly 
 wrong. It made her sad ; it caused her to 
 look forward to his future with an anxious 
 heart. It was so different from the kind of 
 anxiety, and yet settled repose, with which 
 she thought of the only other man in whose 
 future she felt the smallest interest. Of 
 Robert Lyon she was certain that Avhatever
 
 232 MISTRF.SS AND MAID. 
 
 misfortune visited him he would bear it in 
 the best way it could possibly be borne; 
 whatever temptation assailed him he would 
 fight against it as a brave and good Chris- 
 tian should fight. But Ascott ? 
 
 Ascott's life was as 3^et an unanswered 
 query. She could but leave it in Omni- 
 potent hands. 
 
 So she found her way home, asking it 
 once or twice of civil policemen, and going 
 a little distance round — dare I make this 
 romantic confession about so sensible and 
 practical a little woman ? — that she might 
 walk once up Burton Street and down 
 again. But nobody knew the fact, and it 
 did nobody any harm. 
 
 Meantime at No. 15 the afternoon had 
 passed heavily enough. Miss Selina had 
 gone to lie down — she always did of Sun- 
 days ; and Elizabeth, after making her com- 
 fortable, by the little attentions that she 
 never failed to require, had descended to the 
 dreary wash-house, which had been appro- 
 priated to herself, under the name of a 
 " private kitchen," in the which, after all
 
 MISTRESS AKD MAID. 233 
 
 the cleanings and improvements she could 
 achieve, she sat like Marius among the 
 ruins of Carthage, and sighed for the tidy, 
 bright house-place at Stowbury. Already, 
 from her brief experience, she had decided 
 that London people were horrid shams, 
 because they did not in the least care to 
 have their kitchens comfortable. She won- 
 dered how she shouhl ever exist in this one, 
 and might have carried her sad and sullen 
 face upstairs, if Miss Leaf had not come 
 downstairs, and glancing about with that 
 ever-gentle smile of hers, said kindly : " Well, 
 it is not a very pleasant place, but you have 
 made the best of it, Elizabeth. AYe must 
 all put up with something, you know. 
 Xow, as my eyes are not very good to-day, 
 suppose you come and read me a chapter." 
 
 So, in the quiet parlour, the maid sat 
 down opposite her mistress, and read aloud 
 out of that Book which says distinctly — 
 
 " Servants^ he obedient to them that are 
 your wasters according to the flesh, icithfear 
 and tremhling, in singleness of heart, as unto 
 Christ : knowing that whatsoever good thing
 
 234 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 any man doeth, the same shall he receive of 
 the Lord^ whether he he bond or freer 
 
 And yet says immediately after — 
 
 " Ye masters^ do the same things unto them^ 
 forbearing threatening : knowing that your 
 Master also is in heaven: 7ieither is there 
 respect of persons with Him,^^ 
 
 And I think that Master whom Paul 
 served, not in preaching only, but also in 
 practice, when he sent back the slave Onesi- 
 mus to Philemon, praying that he might be 
 received, " not now as a servant, but above 
 a servant, a brother beloved," that Divine 
 Master must have looked tenderly upon 
 these two women— both women, though of 
 such different age and position, and taught 
 them through His Spirit in His Word, as 
 only He can teach. 
 
 The reading was disturbed by a carriage 
 driving up to the door, and a knock, a tre- 
 mendously grand and forcible footman's 
 knock, which made Miss Leaf start in her 
 easy-chair. 
 
 " But it can't be visitors to us. We 
 know nobody. Sit still, Elizabeth."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 235 
 
 It was a visitor, however, though by what 
 ingenuity he found them out, remained, 
 when they came to think of it, a great 
 puzzle. A card was sent in by the dirty 
 servant of Mrs. Jones, speedily followed by 
 a stout, bald-headed, round-faced man — I 
 suppose I ought to write "gentleman" — in 
 whom, though she had not seen him for 
 years, Miss Leaf found no difficulty in 
 recognising the grocer's 'prentice boy, now 
 Mr. Peter Ascott, of Kussell Square. 
 
 She rose to receive him ; there was always 
 a stateliness in Miss Leaf's reception of 
 strangers ; a slight formality belonging to 
 her own past generation, and to the time 
 when the Leafs were a " county family." 
 Perhaps this extra dignity, graceful as it 
 was, overpowered the little man ; or else, 
 being a bachelor, he was unaccustomed to 
 ladies' society : but he grew red in the face, 
 twiddled his hat, and then cast a sharp 
 inquisitive glance towards her. 
 
 " Miss Leaf, I presume, ma'am. The 
 eldest?" 
 
 " I am the eldest Miss Leaf, and very glad
 
 236 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 to have an opportunity of thanking you for 
 your long kindness to ray nephew. Eliza- 
 beth, give Mr. Ascott a chair." 
 
 While doing so, and before her disappear- 
 ance, Elizabeth took a rapid observation of 
 the visitor, whose name and history were 
 perfectly familiar to her. Most small tov/ns 
 have their hero, and Stowbury's pet hero 
 was Peter Ascott, the grocer's boy, the little 
 fellow who had gone up to London to seek 
 his fortune, and had, strange to say, found it. 
 Whether by industry or luck — except that 
 industry is luck, and luck is only another 
 word for industry — he had gradually risen 
 to be a large City merchant, a drysalter I 
 conclude it would be called, with a hand- 
 some house, carriage, &c. He had never 
 revisited his native place, which indeed 
 could hardly be expected of him, as he had 
 no relations; but, when asked, as was not 
 seldom of course, he subscribed liberally 
 to its charities. 
 
 Altogether he was a decided hero in the 
 place, and though people really knew very 
 little about him, the less they knew the
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 237 
 
 more tliey gossipped; holding him up to the 
 rising; f^^eneration as a modern Dick Whit- 
 tington, and reverencing him extremely as 
 one who had shed glory on his native town. 
 Even Elizabeth had conceived a great 
 notion of Peter Ascott. When she saw this 
 little fat man, coarse and common-looking 
 in spite of his good clothes and diamond 
 ring, and in manner a curious mixture of 
 pomposity and awkwardness, she laughed 
 to herself, thinking wliat a very uninterest- 
 ing individual it was about whom Stowbury 
 had told so many interesting stories. 
 
 However, she went up to inform Miss 
 Selina of the visitor, and prevent her mak- 
 ing her appearance before him in the usual 
 Sunday dishabille in which she indulged 
 when no callers were expected. 
 
 After the first awkwardness, Mr. Peter 
 Ascott became quite at his ease with Miss 
 Leaf. He began to talk — not of Stowbury, 
 that subject was tacitly ignored by both — 
 but of London, and then of " my house in 
 Kussell Square," " my carriage," " my ser- 
 vants" — the inconvenience of keeping
 
 238 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 coachmen who would drink, and footmen who 
 would not clean the plate properly ; ending 
 by what was a favourite moral axiom of his, 
 that "wealth and position are heavy re- 
 sponsibilities." 
 
 He himself seemed, however, not to have 
 been quite overwhelmed by them ; he was 
 fat and flourishing — with an acuteness and 
 power in the upper half of his face which 
 accounted for his having attained his pre- 
 sent position. The lower half — somehow 
 Miss Leaf did not like it, she hardly knew 
 why, though a physiognomist might have 
 known. For Peter Ascott had the under- 
 hanging, obstinate, sensual lip, the large 
 throat — bull-necked, as it has been called; 
 indications of that essentially coarse nature 
 which may be born with the nobleman as 
 with the clown ; which no education can 
 refine, and no talent, though it may co-exist 
 with it, can ever entirely remove. He 
 reminded one, perforce, of the rough old 
 proverb, " You can't make a silk purse out 
 of a sow's ear." 
 
 Still, Mr. Ascott was not a bad man.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 239 
 
 though something deeper than his glorious 
 indifference to grammar, and his dropped 
 h's — which, to steal some one's joke, might 
 have been swept up in bushels from Miss 
 Leafs parlour floor — made it impossible for 
 him ever to become, by any culture what- 
 soever, a gentleman. 
 
 They talked of Ascott, as being the 
 most convenient mutual subject ; and Miss 
 Leaf expressed the gratitude which her 
 nephew felt, and she earnestly hoped would 
 ever show, towards his kind godfather. 
 
 Mr. Ascott looked pleased. 
 
 " XJm — yes, Ascott 's not a bad fellow — 
 believe he means well; but weak, ma'am, 
 I'm afraid he's weak. Knows nothing of 
 business — has no business habits whatever. 
 However, we must make the best of him ; 
 I don't repent anything I've done for 
 him." 
 
 " I hope not," said Miss Leaf, gravely. 
 
 And then there ensued an uncomfortable 
 pause, which was happily broken by the 
 opening of the door, and the sweeping in of 
 a large goodly figure.
 
 240 MISTIIESS AND MAID. 
 
 " My sister, Mr. Ascott ; my sister 
 Selina." 
 
 The little stout man actually started, 
 and, as he bowed, blushed up to the eyes. 
 
 Miss Selina was, as I have stated, the 
 beauty of the family, and had once been an 
 acknowledged Stowbury belle. Even now, 
 though nigh upon forty, when carefully and 
 becomingly dressed, her tall figure, and 
 her well-featured, fair-complexioned, un- 
 wrinkled face, made her still appear a very 
 personable woman. At any rate, she was 
 not faded enough, nor the City magnate's 
 heart cold enough, to prevent a sudden 
 revival of the vision which — in what now 
 seemed an almost antediluvian stage of 
 existence — had dazzled, Sunday after Sun- 
 day, the eyes of the grocer's lad. If there 
 is one pure spot in a man's heart — even 
 the very worldliest of men — it is usually his 
 boyish first love. 
 
 So Peter Ascott looked hard at Miss 
 Selina, then into his hat, then, as good luck 
 would have it, out of the window, where 
 he caught sight of his carriage and horses.
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 241 
 
 These revived his spirits, and made him 
 recognise what he was — Mr. Ascott of Rus- 
 sell Square, addressing himself in the cha- 
 racter of a benevolent patron to the Leaf 
 family. 
 
 " Glad to see you, Miss. Long time 
 since we met — neither of us so young as 
 we have been — but you do wear well, I 
 must say." 
 
 Miss Selina drew back ; she was within 
 an inch of being highly offended, when she 
 too happened to catch a glimpse of the car- 
 riage and horses. So she sat down and 
 entered into conversation with their owner ; 
 and, when she liked, nobody could be more 
 polite and agreeable than Miss Selina. 
 
 So it happened that tlie handsome equi- 
 page crawled round and round the Crescent, 
 or stood pawing the silent Sunday street 
 before No. 15, for very nearly an hour, 
 even till Hilary came home. 
 
 It was vexatious to have to make excuses 
 for Ascott ; particularly as his godfather 
 said, with a laugh, that "young fellows 
 w^ould be young fellows; they needn't ex- 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 pect to see the lad till midnight, or till 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 But though in this and other things he 
 somewhat annoyed the ladies from Stow- 
 bury, no one could say he was not civil to 
 them — exceedingly civil. He offered them 
 Botanical Garden tickets — Zoological Gar- 
 den tickets ; he even, after some meditation 
 and knitting of his shaggy grey eyebrows, 
 bolted out with an invitation for the whole 
 family to dinner at Eussell Square the fol- 
 lowing Sunday. 
 
 " I always give my dinners on Sunday. 
 I 've no time any other day," said he, when 
 Miss Leaf gently hesitated. " Come or not, 
 just as you like." 
 
 Miss Selina, to whom the remark was 
 chiefly addressed, bowed the most gracious 
 acceptance. 
 
 The visitor took very little notice of Miss 
 Hilary. Probably, if asked, he would have 
 described her as a small, shabbily-dressed 
 person, looking very like a governess. In- 
 deed, the fact of her governess-ship seemed 
 suddenly to recur to him ; he asked her if
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 243 
 
 she meant to set up another school, and 
 being informed that she rather wished pri- 
 vate pupils, promised largely that she should 
 have the full benefit of his " patronage " 
 among his friends. Then he departed, 
 leaving a message for Ascott to call next 
 day, as he wished to speak to him. 
 
 " For you must be aware, Miss Leaf, that 
 though your nephew's allowance is nothing 
 — a mere drop in the bucket out of my 
 large income — still, when it comes year 
 after year, and no chance of his shifting for 
 himself, the most benevolent man in the 
 world feels inclined to stop the supplies. 
 Not that I shall do that — at least not im- 
 mediately : he is a fine young fellow, whom 
 I 'm rather proud to have helped a step up 
 the ladder, and I 've a great respect " — here 
 he bowed to Miss Selina — "a great respect 
 for your family. Still there must come a 
 time when I shall be obliged to shut up my 
 purse-strings. You understand, ma'am ?" 
 " I do," Miss Leaf answered, trying to 
 speak with dignity, and yet patience, for she 
 saw Hilary's face beginning to flame. " And 
 
 B 2
 
 244 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 I trust, Mr. Ascott, my nephew will soon 
 cease to be an expense to you. It was your 
 own voluntary kindness that brought it upon 
 yourself, and I hope you have not found, 
 never will find, either him or us un- 
 grateful." 
 
 " Oh, as to that, ma'am, I don't look for 
 gratitude. Still, I hope Ascott will work his 
 way into a good position — and he '11 be 
 the first of the family that ever did, I 
 reckon — but I beg your pardon, Miss Leaf. 
 — Ladies, I'll bid you good day. Will 
 your servant call my carriage ? " 
 
 The instant he was gone, Hilary burst 
 forth — 
 
 " If I were Ascott, I 'd rather starve in a 
 garret, break stones in the high-road, or 
 buy a broom and sweep a crossing, than I 'd 
 be dependent on this man — this pompous, 
 purse-proud, illiterate fool ! " 
 
 '' No, not a fool," reproved Johanna. 
 "An acute, clear-headed, nor, I think, bad- 
 hearted man. Coarse and common, cer- 
 tainly ; but if we were to hate everything 
 coarse or common, w^e should find plenty to
 
 MISTRESS AND ^lAID. 245 
 
 hate. Besides, though he bestows his kind- 
 ness in an unpleasant way, it is kindness. 
 Think how very, very much he has done 
 for Ascott." 
 
 " Johanna, I think you would find a good 
 word for the de'il himself, as we used to 
 say," cried Hilary, laughing. *' Well, 
 Selina, and what is your opinion of our 
 stout friend ? " 
 
 Miss Selina, bridHng a little, declared 
 that she did not see so much to complain of 
 in Mr. Ascott. He was not educated cer- 
 tainly, but he was a most respectable per- 
 son. And his calling upon them so 
 soon was very civil and attentive. She 
 thought, considering his present position, 
 they should forget — indeed, as Christians 
 they were bound to forget — that he was 
 once their grocer's boy. She was quite of 
 opinion that they ought to dine with him 
 next Sunday. 
 
 " For my part, I shall go, although it is 
 Sunday. I consider it in the light of a 
 religious duty — my duty towards my 
 neighbour."
 
 246 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Which is, according to the Catechism, 
 ' to love him as yourself.' Very well ! I 
 am sure, Selina, I have no objection. It 
 would be a grand romantic wind-up to the 
 story which Stowbury used to tell — of how 
 the 'prentice boy stared his eyes out at the 
 beautiful young lady ; and you would get 
 the advantage of 'my house in Eussell 
 Square,' ' my carriage and servants,' and be 
 able to shed a glory upon your whole family. 
 Do, now 1 set your cap at Peter Ascott." 
 
 Here Hilary, breaking out into one of her 
 childish fits of irrepressible laughter, was 
 startled to see Selina's face one blaze of 
 indignation. 
 
 " Hold your tongue, you silly chit, and 
 don't chatter about things you cannot un- 
 derstand." 
 
 And she swept majestically from the 
 room. 
 
 " What have I done ? Why, she is really 
 vexed. If I had thought she would have 
 taken it in earnest, I would never have said 
 a word." 
 
 But Miss Selina's fits of irritation were
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 247 
 
 SO common, that the sisters rarely troubled 
 themselves long about them. And when, 
 at tea-time, she came down in the best of 
 spirits, they met her half-way, as they 
 always did, thankful for these brief calms 
 in the family atmosphere, which never lasted 
 too long. 
 
 It was a somewhat heavy evening. They 
 waited supper till after ten ; and yet Ascott 
 did not appear. Miss Leaf read the chapter 
 as usual ; and Elizabeth was sent to bed, 
 but still no sign of the absentee. 
 
 " I will sit up for him. He cannot be 
 many minutes now," said his aunt Hilarj^, 
 and settled herself in the solitary parlour, 
 which one candle and no fire made as cheer- 
 less as could possibly be. 
 
 There she waited till midnight, before 
 the young man came in. Perhaps he was 
 struck with compunction by her weary 
 white face — by her silent lighting of his 
 candle, for he made her a thousand apolo- 
 gies. 
 
 " Ton my honour. Aunt Hilary, I '11 
 never keep you up so late again. Poor
 
 248 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 dear auntie, how tired she looks ! " and he 
 kissed her affectionately. " But if you 
 were a young fellow, and got among other 
 young fellows, and they over-persuaded 
 you -" 
 
 " You should learn to say, No." 
 " Ah," with a sigh, " so I ought, ff I 
 were as good as my aunt Hilary."
 
 249 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Months slipped by ; the trees in Burton 
 Crescent had long been all bare ; the sum- 
 mer cries of itinerant vegetable dealers and 
 flower-sellers had vanished out of the quiet 
 street. The three sisters almost missed 
 them, sitting in that one dull parlour from 
 morning till night, in the intense solitude 
 of people who, having neither heart nor 
 money to spend in gaieties, live forlorn in 
 London lodgings, and knowing nobody, 
 have nobody to visit, nobody to visit them. 
 Except Mr. Ascott, who still called, and 
 occasionally stayed to tea. The hospitali- 
 ties, however, were all on their side. The 
 first entertainment — to which Selina in- 
 sisted upon going, and Johanna thought 
 Hilary and Ascott had better go too — was 
 splendid enough, but they were the only
 
 250 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 ladies present ; and tlioiigli Mr. Ascott did 
 the honours with great magnificence, put- 
 ting Miss Selina at the head of his table, 
 where she looked exceedingly well, still the 
 sisters agreed it was better that all further 
 invitations to Russell Square should be 
 declined. Miss Selina herself said it would 
 be more dignified and decorous. 
 
 Other visitors they had none. Ascott 
 never offered to bring any of his friends ; 
 and gradually they saw very little of him. 
 He was frequently out, especially at meal 
 times, so that his aunts gave up the strug- 
 gle to make the humble dinners better and 
 more to his liking, and would even have 
 hesitated to take the money which he was 
 understood to pay for his board, had he 
 ever ofi'ered it — which he did not. Yet 
 still, whenever he did happen to remain 
 with them a day, or an evening, he was 
 good and afi'ectionate, and always enter- 
 tained them with descriptions of what great 
 things he would do as soon as he got into 
 practice. 
 
 Meantime they kept house as economi-
 
 IVnSTRESS AND ^lAID. 251 
 
 cally as possible upon the little ready money 
 they had, hoping that more would come in 
 
 — that Hilary would get pupils. 
 
 But Hilary never did. To anybody who 
 knows London this fact will not be surprising. 
 The wonder was in the Misses Leaf being so 
 simple as to imagine that a young country 
 lady, settling herself in lodgings in an obscure 
 metropolitan street, without friends or in- 
 troduction, could ever expect such a thing. 
 Nothhig but her own daring, and the irre- 
 pressible wellspring of hope that was in 
 her healthy youth, could have sustained 
 her in what, ten years after, would have 
 appeared to her, as it certainly was, down- 
 right insanity. But Heaven takes care 
 of the mad — the righteously and unsel- 
 fishly mad — and Heaven took care of poor 
 Hilary. 
 
 The hundred labours she went through 
 
 — weariness of body and travail of soul ; 
 the risks she ran ; the pitfalls she escaped 
 
 — what need to record here ? Many have 
 recorded the like, many more have known 
 them, and acknowledged that when such
 
 252 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 histories are reproduced in books, imagi- 
 nation fades compared with reality. Hilary 
 never looked back upon that time her- 
 self without a shuddering wonder how she 
 could have dared all and gone through 
 all ! Possibly she never could, but for the 
 sweet old face, growing older, yet sweeter, 
 every day, which smiled upon her the minute 
 she opened the door of that dull parlour, 
 and made even No. 15 look like home. 
 
 When she told, sometimes gaily, some- 
 times with burning, bursting tears, the tale 
 of her day's efforts and day's failures, it 
 was always comfort to feel Johanna's hand 
 on her hair, Johanna's voice whispering- 
 over her. " Never mind, my child, all 
 will come right in time. All happens for 
 good." 
 
 And the face, withered and worn, yet 
 calm as a summer sea, full of the *' peace 
 which passeth all understanding," was a 
 living comment on the truth of these 
 words. 
 
 Another comfort Hilary had — Elizabeth. 
 During her long days of absence, wander-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 253 
 
 ing from one end of London to the other, 
 after advertisements that she had answered, 
 or governess institutions to which she had 
 applied, the domestic affairs fell almost en- 
 tirely into the hands of Elizabeth. It was she 
 who bought in, and kept a jealous eye, not 
 unneeded, over provisions ; she who cooked 
 and waited, and sometimes even put a 
 helping hand, coarse but willing, into the 
 family sewing and mending. This had 
 now become so vital a necessity that it was 
 fortunate Miss Leaf had no other occupa- 
 tion, and Miss Selina no other entertain- 
 ment, than stitch, stitch, stitch, at the 
 ever - beginning, never - ending wardrobe 
 wants which assail decent poverty every- 
 where, and especially in London. 
 
 '^ Clothes seem to wear out frightfully- 
 fast here," said Hilary one day, as she was 
 putting on her oldest gown, to suit a damp 
 foggy day, when the streets were slippery 
 with the mud of settled rain. 
 
 '' I saw such beautiful merino dresses in 
 a shop in Southampton Kow," insinuated 
 Elizabeth ; but her mistress shook her head.
 
 254 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " ISTo, no ; my old black silk will do 
 capitally, and I can easily put on some- 
 thing under my thin shawl. Nobody knows 
 me ; and people may wear what they like 
 in London. Don't look so grave, Elizabeth. 
 What does it signify if I can but keep myself 
 warm ? Now, run away." 
 
 Elizabeth obeyed, but shortly reap- 
 peared, with a bundle — a large old- 
 fashioned Paisley shawl. 
 
 " Mother gave it me — her mistress gave 
 it her ; but we Ve never worn it, either of 
 us. If only you didn't mind putting 
 it on, just this once — this terrible wet 
 day?" 
 
 The scarlet face, the entreating tones — 
 there was no resisting them. One natural 
 pang Hilary felt — that in her sharp poverty 
 she had fallen so low as to be indebted to 
 her servant, and then she too blushed, 
 less for shame at accepting the kindness 
 than for her own pride that could not at 
 once receive it as such. 
 
 " Thank you, Elizabeth," she said, gravely 
 and gently, and let herself be wrapped in
 
 MISTRESS AXD MAID. 255 
 
 the thick shawl. Its sorgeous reds and 
 yellows would, she knew, make her notice- 
 able, even though '• people might wear any- 
 thing in London." Still, she put it on with 
 a good grace ; and all through her peregri- 
 nations that day it warmed, not only her 
 shoulders, but her heart. 
 
 Coming home, she paused wistfully be- 
 fore a glittering shoe-shop — her poor little 
 feet were so soaked and cold. Could she 
 possibly afford a new pair of boots ? It 
 was not a matter of vanity — she had passed 
 that stage. She did not care now how ugly 
 and shabby looked the " Avee feet" that had 
 once been praised ; but she felt that new 
 boots might be a matter of health and pru- 
 dence. Suppose she caught cold — fell ill — 
 died : — died, leaving Johanna to struggle 
 alone — died before Robert Lyon came home! 
 Both thoughts struck sharp. She was too 
 young still, or had not suffered enough, 
 calmly to think of death and dying. 
 
 " It will do no harm to inquire the price. 
 I might stop it out in omnibuses." 
 
 For this was the way every new article
 
 256 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 of dress had to be procured — "stopping it 
 out " of something else. 
 
 After trying several pairs — with a fierce, 
 bitter blush at a small hole which the day's 
 walking had worn in her well-darned stock- 
 ings, and which she was sure the shopman 
 saw, as well as an old lady who sat opposite 
 — Hilary bought the stoutest and plainest 
 pair of boots she could find. The bill over- 
 stepped her purse by sixpence, which she 
 promised on delivery, and paid the rest. 
 She had got into a nervous horror of letting 
 any account stand over for a single day. 
 
 Look tenderly, reader, on this picture of 
 struggles so small, of sufferings so uninter- 
 esting and mean. I paint it, not because 
 it is original, but because it is so awfully real 
 and true. Thousands of women, well-born, 
 well- reared, know it to be true — burnt into 
 them by the cruel conflict of their youth ; 
 happy they if it ended in their youth, while 
 mind and body had still enough vitality and 
 elasticity to endure ! I paint it, likewise, be- 
 cause it accounts for the accusation some- 
 times made — especially by men — that
 
 MISTRESS AKD MAID. 257 
 
 women are naturally " stingy" — much 
 more than they themselves are. Possibly 
 so ; but in many instances, may it not have 
 been this petty struggle with petty wants, 
 this pitiful calculating of penny against 
 penny, how best to save here and spend 
 there, which narrows a woman's nature in 
 spite of herself ? It sometimes takes years 
 of comparative ease and freedom from pecu- 
 niary cares, to counteract the grinding, 
 lowering effects of a youth of poverty. 
 
 And I paint this picture too, literally, 
 and not on its picturesque side — if, indeed, 
 poverty has a picturesque side — in order 
 to show another side which it really has — 
 high, heroic, made up of dauntless endur- 
 ance, self-sacrifice, and self-control. Also 
 to indicate that blessing: which narrow cir- 
 cumstances alone bestow, the habit of look- 
 ing more to the realities than to the shows 
 of things, and of finding pleasure in enjoy- 
 ments mental rather than sensuous, inward 
 rather than external. When people can 
 truly recognise this, they cease either to be 
 afraid or ashamed of poverty. 
 
 VOL. I. s
 
 258 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Hilary was not ashamed — not even now, 
 when hers smote sharper and harder than 
 it had ever done at Stowbury. She felt it 
 a sore thing enough ; but it never humi- 
 liated nor angered her. Either she was too 
 proud or not proud enough ; but her low 
 estate always seemed to her too simply ex- 
 ternal a thing to affect her relations with 
 the world outside. She never thought of 
 being annoyed with the shopkeeper, who, 
 though he trusted her with the sixpence, 
 carefully took down her name aipd address : 
 still less of suspecting the old lady opposite, 
 who sat and listened to the transaction — 
 apparently a well-to-do customer, clad in a 
 rich black silk and handsome sable furs — 
 of looking down upon her or despising her. 
 Why should anybody despise her ? She never 
 despised anybody, except for wickedness. 
 
 So she waited contentedly, neither think- 
 ing of herself, nor of what others thought 
 of her ; but with her mind quietly occupied 
 by the two thoughts which in any brief 
 space of rest always recurred, calming down 
 all annoyances, and raising her above the 
 level of petty pains — Johanna and Robert
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 259 
 
 Lyon. Under the influence of these her 
 tired face grew composed, and there arose a 
 wistful, far-away, fond look in her eyes, 
 which made it not wonderful that the said 
 old lady — apparently an acute old lady in 
 her way — should watch her, as we do occa- 
 sionally watch strangers in whom we have 
 become suddenly interested. 
 
 There is no accounting for these interests, 
 or for the events to which they give rise. 
 Sometimes they are pooh-poohed as ^' ro- 
 mantic," " unnatural," " like a bit in a 
 novel ; " and so on ; yet they are facts con- 
 tinually occurring, to people of quick in- 
 tuition, observation, and sympathy. Nay, 
 even the most ordinary folk have known of 
 or experienced the same, resulting in mys- 
 terious, life-long loves; firm friendships; 
 strange yet often wonderfully happy mar- 
 riages ; sudden revolutions of fortune and 
 destiny. These things are utterly unac- 
 countable for, except by the belief in that 
 inscrutable Providence which 
 
 Kough-hew them as we will. 
 
 Shapes our ends, 
 m 
 s2
 
 260 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 When Hilary left the shop, she was startled 
 by a voice at her elbow. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, but if your way lies 
 up Southampton Row, would you object to 
 give an old woman a share of that capital 
 umbrella of yours ?" 
 
 *'With pleasure," Hilary answered, though 
 the oddness of the request amused her. And 
 it was granted really with pleasure ; for the 
 old lady spoke with those " accents of the 
 mountain tongue " which this foolish Hilary 
 never recognised without a thrill at the 
 heart. 
 
 " Maybe you think I ought to take a 
 cab, and not be intruding upon strangers ; 
 but I am hale and hearty ; and being only 
 a street's length from my own door, I dis- 
 like to waste unnecessary shillings." 
 
 " Certainly," acquiesced Hilary, with a 
 half-sigh: shillings were only too precious 
 to her. 
 
 " I saw you in the boot- shop, and you 
 seemed the sort of young lady who would 
 do a kindness to an old body ; so I said to 
 myself, ^ I'll ask her.' "
 
 MISTKESS AND MAID. 261 
 
 " I am glad you did." Poor girl ! she 
 felt unconsciously pleased at finding herself 
 still able to show a kindness to anybody. 
 
 They walked on and on — it was cer- 
 tainly a long street's length — to the 
 stranger's door, and Hilary went a good 
 way round from hers ; but she said nothing 
 of this, concluding, of course, that her 
 companion was unaware of where she lived 
 — in which she was mistaken. They 
 stopped at last before a respectable house 
 near Brunswick Square, bearing a brass 
 plate, with the words " Miss Balquidder." 
 
 '- That is my name, and very much 
 obliged to you, my dear. How it rains ! 
 Ye 're just droukit." 
 
 Hilary smiled, and shook her damp 
 shawl. " I shall take no harm. I am used 
 to go out in all weathers." 
 
 '' Are you a governess ? " The question 
 was so direct and kindly, that it hardly 
 seemed an impertinence. 
 
 " Yes ; but I have no pupils, and I fear 
 I shall never get any." 
 
 " Why not ? "
 
 262 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " I suppose, because I know nobody 
 here. It seems very difficult to get teach- 
 ing in London. But I beg your pardon." 
 
 "I beg yours," said Miss Balquidder — 
 not without a certain dignity — '* for ask- 
 ing questions of a stranger. But I was 
 once a stranger here myself, and had a 
 ' sair fecht,' as we say in Scotland, before 
 I could earn even my daily bread. Though 
 I wasn't a governess, still I know pretty 
 well what the sort of life is, and if I had 
 daughters who must work for their bread, 
 the one thing I would urge upon them 
 should be — ' Never become a governess.' " 
 
 ''" Indeed ! For what reason ? " 
 
 " I '11 not tell you now, my dear, standing 
 as you are, with all your wet clothes on ; 
 but as I said, if you will do me the favour 
 to call— " 
 
 "Thank you! I will," said Hilary, not 
 sufficiently initiated in London caution to 
 dread making a new acquaintance. Be- 
 sides, she liked the rough-hewn, good- 
 natured face ; and the Scotch accent was 
 sweet to her ear.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 263 
 
 Yet when she reached home she was 
 half shy of telling her sisters the engage- 
 ment she had made. Selina was ex- 
 tremely shocked ; and considered it quite 
 necessary that the London Directory — 
 the nearest clergyman — or, perhaps Mr. 
 Ascott, who, living in the parish, must 
 know — should be consulted as to Miss 
 Balquidder's respectability. 
 
 " She has much more reason to question 
 ours," recollected Hilary, with some amuse- 
 ment, "for I never told her my name or 
 address. She does not know a single thing 
 about me." 
 
 Which fact, arouing; the matter enero;eti- 
 cally two days after, the young lady might 
 not have been so sure of, could she have 
 penetrated the ceiling overhead. In truth, 
 Miss Balquidder, a prudent person, who 
 never did things by halves, and, like most 
 truly generous people, was cautious even in 
 her extremest fits of generosity, had care- 
 fully set down in her tenacious memory 
 the address Hilary gave to the boot-maker, 
 and at that very moment was sitting in Mrs.
 
 264 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Jones' first-floor, deliberately discovering 
 every single thing possible to be learned 
 about the Leaf family. 
 
 Nevertheless, owing to Selina's indignant 
 pertinacity, Hilary's own hesitation, and a 
 dim hope of a pupil which rose up and 
 faded like the rest, the possible acquaint- 
 ance lay dormant for two or three weeks : 
 till, alas ! the fabulous wolf actually came to 
 the door ; and the sisters, after paying their 
 wreck's rent, looked aghast at one another, 
 not knowing where in the wide world the 
 next week's rent was to come from. 
 
 " Thank God, we don't owe anything ! 
 not a penny," gasped Hilary. 
 
 " No ; there is comfort in that/' said 
 Johanna. And the expression of her folded 
 hands and upward face was not despairing, 
 even though that of the poor widow of 
 Zarephath, when her barrel of meal was 
 gODe, and her cruse of oil spent, could 
 hardly have been sadder. 
 
 " I am sure we have wasted nothing, 
 and cheated nobody — surely God will 
 help us."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 265 
 
 " I know He will, my child." 
 
 And the two sisters, elder and younger, 
 kissed one another, cried a little, and then 
 sat down to consider what was to be 
 done. 
 
 Ascott must be told how hard things 
 were with them. Hitherto they had not 
 troubled him much with their affairs: in- 
 deed, he was so little at home. And, after 
 some private consultation, both Johanna 
 and Hilary decided that it was wisest to 
 let the lad come and go as he liked ; not 
 attempting — as he once indignantly ex- 
 pressed it — " to tie him to their apron- 
 strings." For instinctively these maiden 
 ladies felt that with men, and, above all, 
 young men, the only way to bind the wan- 
 dering heart was to leave it free, except by 
 trying their utmost to make home always a 
 pleasant home. 
 
 It was touching to see their efforts when 
 Ascott came in of evenings, to enliven, for 
 his sake, the dull parlour at No. 15 : how 
 Johanna put away her mending, and Selina 
 ceased to grumble, and Hilary began her
 
 266 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 lively chat, whicli had never failed to 
 brighten and amuse the household. Her 
 nephew even sometimes acknowledged that 
 wherever he went, he met nobody so 
 " clever " as Aunt Hilary. 
 
 And, presuming upon her influence with 
 him, on this night, after the rest were gone 
 to bed, she — being always the boldest to 
 do any unpleasant thing — said to him — 
 
 " Ascott, how are your business affairs 
 progressing ? When do you think you will 
 be able to get into practice ? " 
 
 " Oh, presently. There 's no hurry." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that. Do you know, 
 my dear boy " — and she opened her purse, 
 which contained a few shillings — " this 
 is all the money we have in the world ! " 
 
 " Nonsense," said Ascott, laughing. " I 
 beg your pardon," he added, seeing it was 
 with her no laughing matter, " but I am 
 so accustomed to be hard up, that I don't 
 seem to care. It always comes right some- 
 how ; at least with me." 
 
 ^'How?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't exactly know ; but it does.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 267 
 
 Don't fret, Aunt Hilary. I '11 lend you a 
 pound or two." 
 
 She drew back. These poor, proud, fond 
 women, who, if their boy, instead of a fine 
 gentleman, had been a helpless invalid, 
 would have tended him, worked for him, 
 nay, begged for him — cheerfully, oh, how 
 cheerfully ! wanting nothing in the whole 
 world but his love — they could not ask 
 him for his money. Even now, ofi^ered 
 thus, Hilary felt as if to take a penny from 
 him would be intolerable. 
 
 Still, the thing must be done. 
 
 " I w^ish, Ascott " — and she nerved 
 herself to say what somebody ought to 
 say to him — " I wish you would, not lend, 
 but pay us the pound a week you said you 
 could so easily spare." 
 
 "To be sure I will ; what a thoughtless 
 fellow I have been ; but — but — I fancied 
 you would have asked me if you wanted it. 
 Xever mind! you "^11 get it all in a lump. 
 Let me see ; how much will it come to ? 
 You are the best head going for arithmetic, 
 Aunt Hilary. Do reckon it all up."
 
 268 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 She did so; and the sum-total made 
 Ascott open his eyes wide. 
 
 " Upon my soul ! I had no idea it was so 
 much. I 'm very sorry, but I seem fairly 
 cleaned out this quarter — only a few 
 sovereigns left to keep the mill going. 
 But you shall have them, or half of them, 
 and I '11 owe you the rest. Here ! " 
 
 He emptied on the table, without count- 
 ing, four or ^YQ pounds. Hilary took two, 
 asking him gravely, *^ If he was sure he 
 could spare so much ? She did not wish 
 to inconvenience him." 
 
 " Oh, not at all ; and I wouldn't mind 
 if it did ; you have been good aunts to 
 me." 
 
 He kissed her, with a sudden fit of com- 
 punction, and bade her good night, looking 
 as if he did not care to be " bothered " any 
 more. 
 
 Hilary retired, more sad, more hopeless 
 about him than if he had slammed the door 
 in her face, or scolded her like a trooper. 
 Had he only met her seriousness in the same 
 spirit, even though it had been a sullen or
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 269 
 
 angry spirit — and little as she said, lie must 
 have felt — she wished him to feel — that his 
 aunts were displeased with him ; — but that 
 utterly unimpressible light-heartedness of 
 his — there was no doing anything with it. 
 There was, so to speak, " no catching hold " 
 of Ascott. He meant no harm. She re- 
 peated over and over again that the lad 
 meant no harm. He had no evil ways ; was 
 always pleasant, good-natured, and affection- 
 ate, in his own careless fashion ; but he was 
 no more to be relied on than a straw that 
 every wind blows hither and thither ; or 
 a butterfly that never sees anything farther 
 than the nearest flower. His was, in short, 
 the pleasure-loving temperament, not posi- 
 tively sinful or sensual, but still holding- 
 pleasure as the greatest and only good : and 
 regarding v/hat deeper natures call " duty," 
 and fmd therein their stronghold and con- 
 solation, as a mere bugbear, or a senti- 
 mental theory, or a useless folly. 
 
 Poor lad ! and he had the world to flght 
 with ; how would it use him ? Even if no 
 heavy sorrows for himself or others smote
 
 270 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 him, his handsome face would have to grow 
 old, his strong frame to meet sickness — 
 death. How would he do it ? That is the 
 thought which always recurs. What is the 
 end of such men as these ? Alas ! the an- 
 swer would come from hospital wards, alms- 
 houses and work-houses, debtors^ prisons 
 and lunatic asylums. 
 
 To apprehensions like this — except the 
 last, the end, which happily as yet seemed far 
 off — Hilary had been slowly and sadly ar- 
 riving about Ascott ; and her conversation 
 with him to-night seemed to make them 
 darken down upon her with added gloom. 
 As she went upstairs, she set her lips to- 
 gether hard. 
 
 "I see there is nobody to do anything, 
 or earn anything, except me. But I must 
 not tell Johanna." 
 
 She lay long awake, planning every con- 
 ceivable scheme for saving or gaining 
 money ; till at length, her wits sharpened 
 by the desperation of the circumstances, 
 there flashed upon her an idea that came 
 out of a talk she had had with Elizabeth 
 that morning. True, it was a perfectly new
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 271 
 
 and untried chance — and a mere cbance ; 
 still she felt it right to overlook nothing. 
 She would not have ventured to tell Selina 
 of it for the world, and even to Johanna, 
 she only said — finding her as wakeful as 
 herself — said it in a careless manner, as 
 if it had relation to nothing, and she ex- 
 pected nothing from it — 
 
 " I think, as I have nothing else to do, I 
 will go and see Miss Balquidder to-morrow 
 morning."
 
 272 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Miss Balquidder's house was a handsome 
 one, handsomely furnished, and a neat little 
 maid- servant showed Hilary at once into 
 the dining-parlour, where the mistress sat 
 before a business-like writing-table, covered 
 with letters, papers, &c., all arranged with 
 the careful order in disorder, which indi- 
 cates even in the smallest things the posses- 
 sion of that accurate methodical mind — 
 than which there are few better possessions, 
 either to its owner or to the world at large. 
 Miss Balquidder was not a personable 
 woman; she had never been so even in 
 youth ; and age had told its tale upon those 
 large, strong features — " thoroughly Scotch 
 features," they would have been called by 
 those who think all Scotchwomen are neces- 
 sarily big, raw-boned, and ugly, and have
 
 ■MISTRESS AND MAID. 273 
 
 never seen that wonderfully noble beauty, 
 not prettiness, but actual beauty, in its high- 
 est physical as well as spiritual develop- 
 ment, which is not seldom found across the 
 Tweed. 
 
 But while there was nothing lovely, there 
 was nothing unpleasant or uncomely in Miss 
 Balquidder. Her large figure, in its plain 
 black silk dress ; her neat white cap, from 
 under which peeped the little round curls 
 of flaxen hair, neither grey nor snowy, but 
 real "lint- white locks" still ; and her good- 
 humoured motherly look — motherly, rather 
 than old-maidish — gave an impression which 
 may be best described by the word " com- 
 fortable." She was a " comfortable " wo- 
 man. She had that quality, too rare, alas ! 
 in all people, and rarest in women going 
 solitary down the hill of life, of being able, 
 out of the deep content of her own nature, 
 to make other people content also. 
 
 Hilary was cheered in spite of herself ; it 
 always conveys hope to the young when in 
 sore trouble, if they see the old looking 
 happy. 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 274 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Welcome, my dear ; I was afraid you 
 had forgotten your promise." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Hilary, responding heartily 
 to the hearty clasp of a hand large as a 
 man's, but soft as a woman's. 
 
 " Why did you not come sooner ? " 
 
 More than one possible excuse flashed 
 through Hilary's mind, but she was too 
 honest to give it. She gave none at all. 
 Nor did she like to leave the impression that 
 this was merely a visit, when she knew she 
 had only come from secondary and personal 
 motives. She therefore said, without an- 
 swering the question, 
 
 " May I tell you why I came to-day ? 
 Because I want advice and help, and I think 
 you can give it, from something I heard 
 about you." 
 
 " Indeed ? From whom ? " 
 
 " In rather a round-about way; from Mrs. 
 Jones, who told our maid-servant." 
 
 " The same girl I met on the staircase at 
 your house ? I beg your pardon, but I know 
 where you live, Miss Leaf ; your landlady 
 happens to be an acquaintance of mine."
 
 MISTEESS AND MAID. 275 
 
 " So she said ; and she told our Elizabeth 
 that you were a rich and benevolent woman, 
 who took a great interest in helping other 
 women — not in money" — blushing scarlet 
 at the idea — "I don't mean that, but in 
 procuring them work. I want work — oh, 
 so terribly ! If you only knew ! " 
 
 ^' Sit down, my dear ; " for Hilary was 
 trembling much, her voice breaking, and 
 her eyes filling, in spite of all her self-com- 
 mand. 
 
 Miss Balquidder — who seemed accus- 
 tomed to wait upon herself — went out of 
 the room, and returned with cake and 
 glasses ; then she took the wine from the 
 sideboard, poured some out for herself and 
 Hilary, and began to talk. 
 
 " It is nearly my luncheon-time, and I 
 am a great friend to regular eating and 
 drinking. I never let anything interfere 
 with my own meals, or other folk's either, 
 if I can help it. I Avould as soon expect 
 that fire to keep itself up without coals, as 
 my mind to go on working, if I don't look 
 after my body. You understand? You 
 
 T 2
 
 276 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 seem to have good health, Miss Leaf. I 
 hope you are a prudent girl, and take care 
 of it ?" 
 
 '' I think I do ; " and Hilary smiled. 
 " At any rate my sister does for me, and 
 also Elizabeth." 
 
 " Ah, I liked the look of that girl. If 
 families did but know that the most useful 
 patent of respectability they can carry about 
 with them is their servant ! Show me the 
 maid, and I '11 make a tolerably good guess 
 what like is the mistress." 
 
 " There 's reason in it too," said Hilary, 
 amused and drawn out of herself by the 
 frank manner and the cordial voice — I use 
 the adjective advisedly: none the less sweet 
 because its good terse English had a decided 
 Scotch accent, with here and there a Scotch 
 word. Also there was about Miss Balquid- 
 der a certain dry humour essentially Scotch, 
 — neither Irish " wit " nor English " fun," 
 but Scotch humour ; a little ponderous per- 
 haps, yet sparkling ; like the sparkles from 
 :i large lump of coal, red- warm at the heart, 
 and capable of warming a whole household.
 
 MISTRESS A^'D MAID. 277 
 
 As many a time it had Avarmed the little 
 household at Stowbury — for Eobert Lyon 
 had it in perfection. Like a waft as from 
 old times, it made Hilary at once feel at 
 home with Miss Balquidder. 
 
 Equally, Miss Balquidder might have seen 
 something in this girl's patient, heroic, for- 
 lorn youth which reminded her of her own. 
 Unreasoning as these sadden attractions 
 appear, there is often a hidden something 
 beneath, which in reality makes them both 
 natural and probable, as was the case here. 
 In half an hoar these two women were sit- 
 ting talking like old friends ; and Hilary 
 had explained her present position, needs, 
 and desires. All ended in the one cry — 
 familiar to how many thousands more of 
 helpless young women ! — " I want work ! " 
 
 Miss Balquidder listened thoughtfally- 
 Xot that it Avas a new story — alas, she 
 heard it every day! but there was some- 
 thing new in the telling of it : such extreme 
 directness and simplicity, such utter Want 
 of either false pride or false shame. Xo 
 asking of favours, and yet no shrinking
 
 278 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 from well-meant kindness : the poor woman 
 speaking freely to the rich one, recognising 
 the common womanhood of both, and never 
 supposing for an instant that mere money 
 or position could make any difference 
 between them. 
 
 The story ended, both turned, as was the 
 character of both, to the practical appli- 
 cation of it — what it was that Hilary 
 needed, and what Miss Balquidder could 
 supply. 
 
 The latter said, after a turn or two up 
 and down the room, with her hands behind 
 her — the only masculine trick she had — 
 
 " My dear, before going further, I ought 
 to tell you one thing — I am not a lady." 
 
 Hilary looked at her in no little bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 "That is," explained Miss Balquidder, 
 laughing, " not an educated gentlewoman 
 like you. I made my money myself — in 
 trade. I kept an outfitter's shop." 
 
 " You must have kept it uncommonly 
 well," was the involuntary reply ; which, in 
 its extreme honesty and naivete^ was per-
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 279 
 
 haps the best thing that Hilary could have 
 said. 
 
 " Well, I think I did ; " and Miss Bal- 
 quidder laughed her hearty laugh, betray- 
 ing one of her few weaknesses — a con- 
 sciousness of her own capabilities as a 
 woman of business, and a pleasure at her 
 own deserved success. 
 
 " Therefore, you see, I cannot help you 
 as a governess. Perhaps I would not if I 
 could, for, so far as I see, a good clearance 
 of one half the governesses extant into honest 
 trades would be for their own benefit, and 
 greatly for the benefit of the other half. 
 But that 's not my afi'air. I only meddle 
 with things I understand. Miss Leaf, 
 would you object to keep a shop?" 
 
 It is no reflection upon Hilary to confess 
 that this point-blank question startled her. 
 Her bringing-up had been strictly among 
 the professional class : and in the provinces 
 sharper than even in London is drawn the 
 line between the richest tradesman who 
 *' keeps a shop," and the poorest lawyer, 
 doctor, or clergyman who ever starved in
 
 280 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 decent gentility. It had been often a 
 struggle for Hilary Leafs girlish pride to 
 have to teach a b c to little boys and girls 
 whose parents stood behind counters ; but 
 as she grew older she grew wiser, and inter- 
 course with Robert Lyon had taught her 
 much. She never forgot one day, when 
 Selina asked him something about his 
 grandfather or great-grandfather, and he 
 answered quickly, smiling, " Well, I sup- 
 pose I had one, but I really never heard." 
 Nevertheless it takes long to conquer 
 entirely the class prejudices of years, nay, 
 more, of generations. Li spite of her will 
 Hilary felt herself wince, and the colour 
 rush all over her face, at Miss Balquidder's 
 question. 
 
 •^ Take time to answer, and speak out, my 
 dear. Don't be afraid. You '11 not offend 
 me." 
 
 The kindly, cheerful tone made Hilary 
 recover her balance immediately. 
 
 " I never thought of it before ; the pos- 
 sibility of such a thing did not occur to 
 me ; but I hope I should not be ashamed of
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 281 
 
 any honest work for which I was com- 
 petent. Only — to serve in a shop — to 
 wait upon strangers ; — I am so horribly shy 
 of strano'ers." And ao-ain the sensitive 
 colour rushed in a perfect tide over cheeks 
 and forehead. 
 
 Miss Balquidder looked half amused, half 
 compassionately at her. 
 
 " Xo, my dear, you would not make a 
 good shopwoman ; at least there are many 
 better fitted for it than you ; and it is my 
 maxim that people should try to find out, 
 and to do, only that which they are best 
 fitted for. If they did, we might not have 
 so many cases of proud despair and ambi- 
 tious failure in the world. It looks very 
 grand and interesting sometimes to try and 
 do what you can't do, and then tear your 
 hair, and think the world has ill-used you 
 — very grand, but very silly ; when all the 
 while, perhaps, there is something else you 
 can do, and do thoroughly well ; and the 
 world will be exceedingly obliged to you 
 for doing it — and for not doing the other 
 thing. As doubtless the world was to me,
 
 282 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 when, instead of being a mediocre musician, 
 as I once ardently wished to be — it 's true, 
 my dear — I took to keeping one of the best 
 ladies^ outfitting warehouses in London." 
 
 While she talked, her companion had 
 quite recovered herself, and Miss Bal- 
 quidder then went on to relate, what I 
 will tell more briefly, if less graphically, 
 than did the good Scotswoman ; who, like 
 all who have had a hard struggle in their 
 youth, liked a little to dilate upon it in her 
 easy old age. 
 
 Hard as it was, however, the battle had 
 ended early, for at fifty she found herself a 
 woman of independent property, without 
 kith or kin, still active, energetic, and 
 capable of enjoying life. She applied her 
 mind to find out what she could best do 
 with herself and her money. 
 
 " I might have bought a landed estate to 
 be inherited by — nobody; or a house in 
 Belgravia, and an opera-box, to be shared 
 by — nobody. We all have our pet luxu- 
 ries ; none of these were exactly mine." 
 
 " No," assented Hilary, somewhat ab-
 
 MISTRESS AND IMAID. 283 
 
 stractedly. She was thinking, if she could 
 make a fortune, and — and give it away ! 
 if, by any means, any honourable, upright 
 heart could be made to understand that it 
 did not signify, in reality, which side the 
 money came from ; that it sometimes 
 showed deeper, ay, the very deepest attach- 
 ment, when a proud poor man had self- 
 respect and courage enough to tell a woman 
 plainly, " I love you, and I will marry you. 
 I am not such a coward as to be afraid of 
 your gold." 
 
 But, oh ! what a ridiculous dream ! — 
 while she sat there, the penniless Hilary 
 Leaf, listening to Miss Balquidder, the rich 
 lady, whose life seemed so easy. For the 
 moment, perhaps, her own appeared hard. 
 But she had hope, and she was young. She 
 knew nothing of the weary years upon years 
 that Miss Balquidder had lived through 
 before those kind eyes looked as clear and 
 cloudless as now ; before the voice gained 
 the sweet evenness of tone which she liked 
 to listen to, and felt that it made her quiet 
 and " good," almost like Johanna's.
 
 284 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 *' You see, my dear," said ^liss Balquid- 
 der, " when one has no duties, one must 
 just make them ; when we have nobody to 
 care for us, we must take to caring for 
 everybody. I suppose " — here a slight 
 pause indicated that this life, like all wo- 
 men's lives, had had its tale, now long, 
 long told — "I suppose I was not meant to 
 be a wife ; but I am quite certain I was 
 meant to be a mother. And " — with her 
 peculiar, bright, humourous look — ^' you 'd 
 be astonished. Miss Leaf, if you knew what 
 lots of adopted ' children ' I have in all parts 
 of the world." 
 
 Miss Balquidder then went on to explain, 
 that finding, from her own experience, how 
 great was the number, and how sore the 
 trial, of young women ^vho now-a-days 
 are obliged to work — obliged to forget 
 that there is such a thing as the blessed pri- 
 vilege of being worked for — she had set 
 herself, in her small way, to try and help 
 them. Her pet project was to induce edu- 
 cated women to quit the genteel starvation 
 of governess-ship for some good trade,
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 285 
 
 thereby bringing higher intelligence into a 
 class which needed, not the elevation of the 
 work itself, which was comparatively easy 
 and refined, but of the workers. She had, 
 therefore, invested sum after sum of her 
 capital in setting up various small shops in 
 the environs of London, in her own former 
 line, and others — stationers, lace-shops, &c. 
 — trades which could be well carried on by 
 women. Into the management of these 
 she put as many young girls as she could 
 find really fitted for it, or willing to learn, 
 paying them regular salaries, large or 
 small, according to their deserts. 
 
 " Fair work, fair pay ; not one penny 
 more or less ; it would not be honest. I 
 overlook each business myself, and it is 
 carried on in my name. Sometimes it brings 
 me a little profit ; sometimes none. Of 
 course," she added, " I would rather have 
 profits than losses ; still, I balance one 
 against the other, and the total account 
 leaves me generally a small yearly inter- 
 est for my money — two or three per cent., 
 which is all I care about. Thus, you see, I
 
 286 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 and my young people make a fair bargain on 
 both sides : it is no charity ; I don't believe 
 in charity." 
 
 "No," said Hilary, feeling her spirits 
 rise. She was yet young enough, yet 
 enough unworn by the fight, to feel the 
 deliciousness of work — honest work for 
 honest pay. " I think I could do it," she 
 added. " I think, with a little practice, I 
 really could keep a shop." 
 
 " At all events, perhaps you could do 
 what I find more difficult to get done, and 
 well done, for it requires a far higher class 
 of women than generally apply — you could 
 keep the accounts of a shop ; you should be 
 the head, and it would be easy to find the 
 hands. Let me see ; there is a young lady, 
 she has managed my stationer's business at 
 Kensington these two years, and now she is 
 going to be married. Are you good at 
 figures; do you understand book-keeping?" 
 
 And suddenly changing into the woman 
 of business, and one who was evidently 
 well accustomed both to arrange and com- 
 mand, Miss Balquidder put Hilary through
 
 IVUSTRESS AND MAID. 287 
 
 a sort of extempore arithmetical catechism, 
 from which she came off with flying 
 colours. 
 
 ^' I only wish there were more like you. 
 I wish there were more young ladies 
 brought up like — " 
 
 " Like boys ! " said Hilary, laughing ; 
 " for I always used to say that was my case." 
 
 " Xo, I never desire to see young women 
 made into men." And Miss Balquidder 
 seemed a little scandalised. " But I do 
 wish girls were taught fewer accomplish- 
 ments, and more reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic ; were made as accurate, orderly, 
 and self-dependent as boys are. But to 
 business. Will you take the management 
 of my stationer's shop ? " 
 
 Hilary's breath came hard and fast. 
 Much as she had longed for work, to get 
 this sort of work, — to keep a stationer's 
 shop ! "What would her sisters say ? what 
 would he say ? But she dared not think of 
 that just now. 
 
 " How much should I be able to earn, do 
 you think ? "
 
 288 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 Miss Balquidder considered a naoment, 
 and then said, rather shortly — for it was 
 not exactly acting on her own principles ; 
 she knew the pay was above the work — "I 
 will give you a hundred a year." 
 
 A hundred a year ! actually certain, and 
 over and above any other income. It 
 seemed a fortune to poor Hilary. 
 
 " Will you allow me a day or two to think 
 about it, and consult my sisters ? " 
 
 She spoke quietly, but Miss Balquidder 
 could see how agitated she v/as; how she 
 evidently struggled with many feelings that 
 would be best struggled with alone. The 
 good old lady rose. 
 
 " Take your own time, my dear ; I will 
 keep the situation open for you for one 
 week from this date. And now I must 
 send you away, for I have a great deal 
 to do." 
 
 They parted, quite like friends ; and 
 Hilary went out, walking quickly, feeling 
 neither the wind nor the rain. Yet when 
 she reached No. 15, she could not bring 
 herself to enter, but took another turn or
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 289 
 
 two round the Crescent, trj'ing to be quite 
 sure of her own mind before she opened the 
 matter to her sisters. And there was one 
 little battle to be fought which the sisters 
 did not know. 
 
 It was perhaps foolish, seeing she did 
 not belong to him in any open way, and 
 he had no external right over her life or 
 her actions, that she should go back and 
 back to the question, ''What would Kobert 
 Lyon say? " 
 
 He knew she earned her daily bread ; 
 sometimes this had seemed to vex and annoy 
 him, but it must be done ; and when a thing 
 was inevitable, it was not Mr. Lyon's way 
 to say much about it. But being a gover- 
 ness was an accredited and customary mode 
 of a young lady's gaining her livelihood. 
 Keeping a shop was different. What if he 
 should think it too public, too unfeminine? 
 he had such a horror of a woman's being 
 anything but a woman, as strong and brave 
 as she could, but in a womanly way ; doino- 
 anything, however painful, that she was 
 obliged to do, but nothing out of whim or 
 
 VOL. I. u
 
 290 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 bravado, or the excitement of stepping out 
 of her own sphere into man's. Would Robert 
 Lyon think less of her, Hilary, because she 
 had to learn to take care of herself, to protect 
 herself, and to act in so many ways for her- 
 self, contrary to the natural and right order 
 of things ? That old order — God forbid it 
 should ever change ! — which ordained that 
 the women should be ^' keepers at home ;" 
 happy rulers of that happy little world, — 
 which seemed as far oiF as the next world 
 from this poor Hilary. ^ 
 
 " What if he should look down upon me ? 
 What if he should return, and find me 
 different from what he expected ? " And 
 bitter tears burned in her eyes, as she 
 walked rapidly and passionately along the 
 deserted street. Then a revulsion came. 
 
 " No ; love is worth nothing that is not 
 worth everything, and to be trusted through 
 everything. If he could forget me — could 
 love any one better than me — me myself, 
 no matter what I was, ugly or pretty, old 
 or young, rich or poor — I would not care for 
 his love. It would not be worth my
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 291 
 
 having; I'd let it go. Eobert, though it 
 broke my heart, I 'd let you go." 
 
 Her eyes flashed ; her poor little hand 
 clenched itself under her shawl ; and then, 
 as a half reproach, she heard in fancy the 
 steady, loving voice — which could have 
 calmed her wildest paroxysm of passion 
 and pain — "You must trust me, Hilary." 
 
 Yes, he was a man to be trusted. Xo 
 doubt, very much like other men, and by 
 no means such a hero to the world at large 
 as this fond girl made him out to be ; but 
 Robert Lyon had, with all people, and 
 under all circumstances, the character of 
 reliableness. He had also — you might 
 read it in his face — a quality equally rare, 
 faithfulness. !^fot merely sincerity, but 
 faithfulness ; the power of conceiving one 
 clear purpose or one strong love — in unity 
 is strength ; — and of not only keeping true 
 to it at the time, but of holding fast to it 
 with that single-minded persistency which 
 never even takes in the idea of voluntary 
 change, as long as persistency is right or 
 possible. 
 
 tr 2
 
 292 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Robert, Eobert," sobbed this forlorn 
 girl, as if slowly waking up to a sense of 
 her forlornness, and of the almost universal 
 fickleness, not actual falseness, but fickle- 
 ness, which prevails in the world and among 
 mankind, " Oh, Robert, be faithful! faithful 
 to yourself — ^faithful to me ! "
 
 293 
 
 CHAPTER XIY. 
 
 When Miss Hilary readied home, Elizabeth 
 opened the door to her ; the parlour was 
 deserted. 
 
 Miss Leaf had gone to lie down, and 
 Miss Selina was away to see the Lord 
 Mayor^s show with Mr. Peter Ascott. 
 
 " With Mr. Peter Ascott ! " Hilary was 
 a little surprised ; but, on second thoughts, 
 she found it natural; Selina was glad of 
 any amusement — to her, not only the 
 narrowness but the dulness of their poverty 
 was inexpressibly galling. ''She will be 
 back to dinner, I suppose ? " 
 
 '' I don't know," said Elizabeth, briefly. 
 
 Had Miss Hilary been less pre-occupied, 
 she w^ould have noticed something not quite 
 right about the girl — something that at 
 any other time would have aroused the
 
 294 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 direct question, " What is wrong with you, 
 Elizabeth ? " For Miss Hilary did not con- 
 sider it beneath her dignity to observe that 
 matters might occasionally go wrong with 
 this solitary young woman, away from her 
 friends, and exposed to all the annoyances 
 of London lodgings, where many little things 
 might be happening to worry and perplex 
 her. If the mistress could not set them 
 right, she could at least give the word of 
 kindly sympathy, as precious to "a poor 
 servant " as to the queen on her throne. 
 
 This time, however, it came not, and 
 Elizabeth disappeared below stairs imme- 
 diately. 
 
 The girl was revolving in her own mind 
 a difficult ethical question. To-day, for 
 the first time in her life, she had not " told 
 Miss Hilary everything." Two important 
 things had happened, and she could not 
 make up her mind as to whether she ought 
 to communicate them. 
 
 Now, Elizabeth had a conscience, by 
 nature a very tender one, and Avhich, from 
 circumstances, had been cultivated into a
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 295 
 
 much higher sensitiveness than, alas ! is 
 common in her class, or, indeed, in any 
 class. This, if an error, was Miss Hilary's 
 doing ; it probably caused Elizabeth a few 
 more miseries, and vexations, and painful 
 shocks in the world than she would have 
 had, had she imbibed only the ordinary 
 tone of morality, especially the morality of 
 ordinary domestic servants ; but surely it 
 was an error for which no repentance was 
 needed. 
 
 Elizabeth's first trial had happened at 
 breakfast time. Ascott, descending earlier 
 than his wont, had asked her. Did any 
 gentleman, short and dirty, with a hooked 
 nose, inquire for him yesterday ? 
 
 Elizabeth thought a minute, and recol- 
 lected that some person, answering the 
 above not too flattering description, had 
 called, but refused to leave his name, saying 
 he did not know the ladies, but was a par- 
 ticular friend of Mr. Leaf's. 
 
 Ascott laughed. " So he is — a very 
 particular friend ; but my aunts would not 
 fancy him, and I don't want him to come
 
 296 MISTRESS AKD MAID. 
 
 here. Say, if he calls, that I'm gone out 
 of town." 
 
 " Very well, sir. Shall you start before 
 dinner?" said Elizabeth, whose practical 
 mind immediately recurred to that meal, 
 and to the joint, always contrived to be hot 
 on the days that Ascott dined at home. 
 
 He seemed excessively tickled. " Bless 
 you, you are the greatest innocent ! Just 
 say what I tell you and never mind — hush ! 
 here comes Aunt Hilary." 
 
 And Miss Hilary's anxious face, white 
 with long wakefulness, had put out of 
 Elizabeth's head the answer that was 
 coming; indeed, the matter slipped from 
 her mind altogether, in consequence of 
 another circumstance, which happened soon 
 after, and gave her much more perplexity. 
 
 During her young mistress's absence, 
 Elizabeth, supposing Miss Selina out too, and 
 Miss Leaf up stairs, had suddenly come into 
 the parlour without knocking. There, to 
 her amazement, she saw Miss Selina and 
 Mr. Peter Ascott standing in close con- 
 versation. They were so engrossed that
 
 mSTRESS AND MAID. 297 
 
 they did not notice her, and she shut the 
 door again immediately. But what con- 
 founded her was that she was certain, 
 absolutely certain, Mr. Ascott had his arm 
 round Miss Selina's waist. 
 
 Now, that was no business of hers, and 
 yet the faithful domestic was a good deal 
 troubled ; still more so when, by Miss 
 Leafs excessive surprise at hearing of the 
 visitor who had come and gone, carrying 
 ]\Iiss Selina away to the city, she was 
 certain the elder sister was completely in 
 the dark as to anything going to happen in 
 the family. 
 
 Could it be a wedding? Could Miss 
 Selina really love, and be intending to marry, 
 that horrid little man ? For, strange to say, 
 this young servant had, what many a young 
 beauty of rank and fashion has not, or has 
 lost for ever — the true, pure, womanly 
 creed, that loving and marrying are synony- 
 mous terms ; that to let a man put his arm 
 round your waist when you do not intend 
 to marry him, or to intend to marrj^ him for 
 money or anything else when you do not
 
 298 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 really love him, are things quite impossible 
 an^ incredible to any womanly mind. A 
 creed somewhat out of date, and perhaps 
 existing only in stray nooks of the world ; 
 but, thank God ! it does exist. Hilary had 
 it, and she had taught it to Elizabeth. 
 
 " I wonder whether Miss Hilary knows 
 of this ? I wonder what she would say to 
 it?" 
 
 And now arose the perplexing ethical 
 question aforesaid, as to whether Elizabeth 
 ought or ought not to tell her mistress. 
 
 It was one of Miss Hilary's doctrines — 
 the same for the kitchen as for the parlour, 
 nay, preached strongest in the kitchen, 
 where the mysteries of the parlour are so 
 often cruelly exposed — that a secret acci- 
 dentally found out should be kept as sacred 
 as if actually confided ; also, that the secret 
 of an enemy should no more be betrayed 
 than that of a beloved and trusting 
 friend. 
 
 " Miss Selina isn't my enemy," thought 
 Elizabeth; '' but I 'm not over-fond of her, 
 and so I 'd rather not tell of her, or vex her,
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 299 
 
 if I can help it. Anyhow, I '11 keep it to 
 myself for a bit." 
 
 But the secret weighed heavily upon her, 
 and besides, her honest heart felt a certain 
 diminution of respect for Miss Selina. What 
 could she see to like in that common-look- 
 ing, commonplace man, whom she could not 
 have met a dozen times, of whose domestic 
 life she knew nothing, and whose personality 
 Elizabeth, with the sharp observation often 
 found in her class, probably because coarse 
 people do not care to hide their coarseness 
 from servants, had speedily set down at 
 her own valuation — " Neither carriage nor 
 horses, nor nothing, will ever make him a 
 gentleman ! " 
 
 He, however, sent Miss Selina home mag- 
 nificently in the said carriage ; Ascott with 
 her, who had been picked up somewhere in 
 the city, and who, to Elizabeth's surprise, 
 came in to his dinner, Avithout making the 
 slightest reference to going out of town. 
 
 But in spite of her Lord Mayor's Show, 
 and the great attention which she said she 
 had received from " various members of the
 
 300 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Common Council of the City of London," 
 Miss Selina was, for her, rather medita- 
 tive, and did not talk nearly so much as 
 usual. There was in the little parlour an 
 uncomfortable atmosphere, as if all of them 
 had something on their minds. Hilary felt 
 that the ice must be broken, and if she did 
 not do it nobody else would. So she said, 
 stealing her hand into Johanna's, under 
 shelter of the dim firelight — 
 
 " Selina, I wanted to have a little family 
 consultation. I have just received an 
 offer." 
 
 "An offer!" repeated Miss Selina, with 
 a visible start. " Oh, I forgot : you went 
 to see your friend Miss Balquidder this 
 morning. Did you get anything out of 
 her ? Has she any nephews and nieces 
 wanting a governess ?" 
 
 " She has no relations at all. But I will 
 just tell you the story of my visit." 
 
 " I hope it 's interesting," said Ascott, 
 who was lying on the sofa, half asleep — his 
 general habit after dinner. He woke, how- 
 ever, during his aunt Hilary's relation, and
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 301 
 
 when she reached its climax, that the offer 
 was for her to manage a stationer's shop, he 
 burst out lauo-hincr — 
 
 " Well, that is a bright idea ! I '11 come and 
 buy of you. You '11 look so pretty standing 
 behind a counter." 
 
 But Selina said, angrily, " She cannot 
 even think of such a thing. It would be a 
 disgrace to the family.'' 
 
 " No," said Hilary, clasping tightly her 
 eldest sister's hand — they two had already 
 talked the matter over : " I cannot see any 
 disgrace in it. If our family is so poor that 
 the women must earn their living as well as 
 the men, all "sve have to take care of is that 
 it should be honestly earned. What do you 
 say, Ascott?" 
 
 She looked earnestly at him ; she wanted 
 sorely to find out "svhat he really thought. 
 
 But Ascott took it, as he did everything, 
 very easily. " I don't see w^hy Aunt Selina 
 should make such a fuss ! Why need you 
 do anything, Aunt Hilary ? Can't we hold 
 out a little longer, and live upon tick till I 
 get into practice ? Of course, I shall then
 
 302 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 maintain you all ; I 'm the head of the 
 family. How horridly dark this room is ! " 
 He started up, and gave the fire a fierce 
 poke, which consumed in five minutes a 
 large lump of coal that Hilary had hoped 
 — oh, cruel, sordid economy ! — ^ would have 
 lasted half the evening. 
 
 She broke the uneasy silence which fol- 
 lowed, by asking Johanna to give her 
 opinion. 
 
 Johanna roused herself and spoke — 
 
 " Ascott says right ; he is the head of the 
 
 family, and by and bye I trust will take care 
 
 of us all. But he is not able to do it now, 
 
 and, meantime, we must live." 
 
 " To be sure we must. Auntie." 
 
 " I mean, my boy, we must live honestly ; 
 
 we must not run into debt ;" and her voice 
 
 sharpened, as with the reflected horror of 
 
 her young days, if, alas ! there ever had 
 
 been any youth for Plenry Leaf's eldest 
 
 daughter. " No, Ascott, out of debt, out 
 
 of danger. For myself," she laid her thin 
 
 fingers on his arm, and looked up at him 
 
 with a pitiful mixture of reliance and
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 303 
 
 hopelessness, " I would rather see you 
 breaking stones in the road than living like 
 a gentleman, as you call it, and a swindler, 
 as I call it — upon other people's money." 
 
 Ascott sprang up, colouring violently. 
 " You use strong language, Aunt Johanna. 
 Never mind. I dare say you are right. 
 However, it's no business of mine. Good 
 night, for I have an engagement." 
 
 Hilary said gravely she wished he would 
 stay and join in the family consultation. 
 
 " Oh, no ; I hate talking over things. 
 Settle it among yourselves. As I said, it 
 isn't my business." 
 
 *' You don't care, then, what becomes of 
 us all ? I sometimes begin to think so." 
 
 Struck by the tone, Ascott stopped in 
 the act of putting on his lilac kid gloves. 
 " No ! " he cried ; " I may be a very bad 
 fellow, but I 'm not quite so bad as that, 
 Aunt Hilary." 
 
 " She didn't mean it, my boy," said Aunt 
 Johanna, tenderly. 
 
 He was moved, more by the tenderness 
 than the reproach. He came and kissed
 
 304 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 his eldest aunt in that warm-hearted, im- 
 pulsive way which had won him forgiveness 
 for many a boyish fault. It did so now. 
 
 ^' I know I 'm not half good enough to 
 you, Auntie, but I mean to be. I mean to 
 work hard, and be a rich man some day ; 
 and then you may be sure I shall not let 
 my aunt Hilary keep a shop. Now, good 
 nio^ht, for I must meet a fellow on business 
 — really business — that may turn out 
 good for us all, I assure you." 
 
 He went away whistling, with that air of 
 untroubled, good-natured liveliness peculiar 
 to Ascott Leaf, which made them say con- 
 tinually that he was " only a boy," living a 
 boy's life, thoughtless as free. When his 
 handsome face disappeared from their sight, 
 the three women sat down again round the 
 fire. 
 
 They made no comments on him what- 
 ever ; they were women, and he was their 
 own. But — passing him over as if he had 
 never existed — Hilary began to explain to 
 her sisters all particulars of her new scheme 
 for maintaining the family. She told these
 
 MISTRESS AND ]\IAID. 305 
 
 details in a matter-of-fact way, as already- 
 arranged, and finally hoped Selina would 
 make no more objections. 
 
 " It is a thing quite impossible," said 
 Selina, with dignity. 
 
 *' Why impossible ? I could certainly do 
 the work ; and it would not make me less 
 of a lady. Besides, we had better not be 
 ladies, if we cannot be honest ones. And, 
 Selina, where is the money to come from ? 
 We have none in the house ; we cannot 
 get any till Christmas." 
 
 " Opportunities might occur. We have 
 friends." 
 
 " Not one in London : except, perhaps, 
 Mr. Ascott, and I would not ask him for a 
 farthing. You don^t see, Selina, how 
 horrible it would be to be helped — unless 
 by some one whom one dearly loved. I 
 couldn't bear it ! I 'd rather beg, starve ; 
 almost steal ! " 
 
 " Don't be violent, child." 
 
 "Oh, but it's hard!" and the cry of 
 long-sm.othered pain burst out. " Hard 
 enough to have to earn one's bread in a way 
 
 VOL. I. X
 
 306 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 one does not like ; harder still to have to be 
 parted from Johanna — as I shall be — ^from 
 Monday morning till Saturday night. But 
 I will go. It 's a choice between hunger, 
 debt, and work ; the first is unpleasant ; the 
 second impossible ; the third is my only 
 alternative. You must consent, Selina, 
 for I will do it." 
 
 " Don't ! " Selina spoke more gently, and 
 not without some natural emotion — "don't 
 disgrace me, child. For I may as well tell 
 you — I meant to do so to-night — Mr. Ascott 
 has made me an offer of marriage, and I 
 — I have accepted it." 
 
 Had a thunderbolt fallen in the middle of 
 the parlour at No. 15, its inmates — that is, 
 two of them — could not have been more 
 astounded. 
 
 No doubt this surprise was a great 
 instance of simplicity on their part. Many 
 women would have prognosticated, nay 
 planned the thing from the very first ; 
 would have thougiit it a most excellent 
 match ; seen glorious visions of the house 
 in Russell Square; of the wealth and
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 307 
 
 luxury that would be the portion of " dear 
 Selina," and the general benefit that such a 
 marriage would be to the whole Leaf family. 
 
 But these two were difi'erent. They only 
 saw their sister Selina, a woman no lonofer 
 young, and not without her peculiarities, 
 going to be married to a man of whom 
 she knew little or nothing ; a man whom 
 they themselves had endured rather than 
 liked, and that merely from gratitude. 
 He was trying enough as a chance visitor ; 
 but to look upon Mr. Ascott in the light 
 of a brother-in-law, a husband — 
 
 ",0h, Selina, you cannot be in earnest?" 
 
 "Why not ? Why should I not be married 
 as well as my neighbours?" said she, sharply. 
 
 Nobody arguing that point, both ladies 
 being indeed too much bewildered to argue 
 at all, she continued majestically — 
 
 " I assure you, sisters, there could not be 
 a more unexceptionable offer. It is true, 
 Mr. Ascott's origin was rather humble ; but 
 I can overlook that. With his present 
 wealth, position, and character, he will, I 
 doubt not, make the best of husbands." 
 
 X 2
 
 308 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Not a word was answered ; what could 
 be answered ? Selina was free to marry if 
 she liked, and whom she liked. Perhaps, 
 from her nature, it was idle to expect her 
 to marry in any other way than this ; one 
 of the thousand and one unions where the 
 man desires a handsome lady-like wife for 
 the head of his establishment, and the 
 woman wishes an elegant establishment to 
 be mistress of ; so they strike a bargain — 
 possibly as good as most other bar- 
 gains. 
 
 Still, with one faint lingering of hope, 
 Hilary asked if she had quite decided ? 
 
 " Quite. He wrote to me last night, and 
 I gave him his answer this morning." 
 
 Selina certainly had not troubled anybody 
 with her " love affairs." It was entirely a 
 matter of business. 
 
 Her sisters saw at once that she had 
 made up her mind. Henceforward there 
 could be no criticism of Mr. Peter Ascott. 
 
 Now all was. told, she talked freely of 
 her excellent prospects. 
 
 " He has behaved handsomely — very
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 309 
 
 much so. He makes a good settlement on 
 me, and says how happy he will be to help 
 my family, so as to enable you always to 
 make a respectable appearance." 
 
 "We are exceedingly obliged to him." 
 
 " Don't be sharp, Hilary. He means 
 well. And he must feel that this marriage 
 is a sort of — ahem I condescension on my 
 part, which I never should have dreamt of 
 twenty years ago." 
 
 Selina si<2:hed : could it be at the thouirlit 
 of that twenty years ago ? Perhaps, shallow 
 as she seemed, this woman might once have 
 had some fancy, some ideal man whom she 
 expected to meet and marry; possibly a 
 very different sort of man from Mr. Peter 
 Ascott. However, the sigh was but mo- 
 mentary ; she plunged back again into all 
 the arrangements of her wedding, every one 
 of which, down to the wedding-dress, she 
 had evidently decided. 
 
 " And therefore, you see,", she added, as 
 if the unimportant, almost forgotten item 
 of discussion had suddenly occurred to her, 
 " it 's quite impossible that my sister should
 
 310 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 keep a shop. I shall tell Mr. Ascott, and 
 you will see what he says to it." 
 
 But when Mr. Ascott appeared next 
 day in solemn state as an accepted lover, 
 he seemed to care very little about the 
 matter. He thought it was a good thing 
 for everybody to be independent ; did not 
 see why young women — he begged pardon, 
 young ladies — should not earn their own 
 bread if they liked. He only wished that 
 the shop were a little farther off than Ken- 
 sington, and hoped the name of Leaf would 
 not be put over the door. 
 
 But the bride-elect, indignant and an- 
 noyed, begged her lover to interfere, and 
 prevent the scheme from being carried 
 out. 
 
 " Don't vex yourself, my dear Selina," 
 said he, dryly — how Hilary started to hear 
 this stranger use the household name — 
 " but I can't see that it 's my business to 
 interfere. I marry you ; I don't marry 
 your whole family." 
 
 " Mr. Ascott is quite right ; we will end 
 the subject," said Johanna, with grave
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 311 
 
 dignity ; while Hilary sat with burning 
 cheeks, thinking that, miserable as the 
 family had been, it had never till now 
 known real deo-radation. 
 
 But her heart was very sore that day. 
 In the morning had conxe the letter from 
 India, never omitted, never delayed ; Eobert 
 Lyon was punctual as clockwork in every- 
 thing he did. It came, but this month it 
 was a short and somewhat sad letter — 
 hinting of failing health, uncertain pro- 
 spects ; full of a bitter longing to come 
 home, and a dread that it would be years 
 before that lon^^ino; was realised. 
 
 *' My only consolation is," he wrote, for 
 once betraying himself a little, " that how- 
 ever hard my life out here may be, I bear 
 it alone." 
 
 But that consolation was not so easy to 
 Hilary. That they two should be wasting 
 their youth apart, when just a little heap 
 of yellow coins — of which men like Mr. 
 Ascott had such profusion — would bring 
 them together, and, let trials be many, or 
 poverty hard, give them the unutterable
 
 312 MISTKESS AND MAID. 
 
 joy of being once more face to face and 
 heart to heart — oh, it was sore, sore ! 
 
 Yet when she went up from the parlour, 
 where the newly-affianced couple sat toge- 
 ther, " making-believe " a passion that did 
 not exist, and acting out the sham court- 
 ship proper for the gentleman to pay and 
 the lady to receive — when she shut her 
 bedroom door, and there, sitting in the cold, 
 read again and again Eobert Lyon's letter 
 to Johanna, so good, so honest ; so sad, yet 
 so bravely enduring — Hilary was com- 
 forted. She felt that true love, in its most 
 unsatisfied longings, its most cruel delays, 
 nay, even its sharpest agonies of hopeless 
 separation, is sweeter ten thousand times 
 than the most " respectable '' of loveless 
 marriages, such as this. 
 
 So, at the week's end, Hilary went 
 patiently to her work at Kensington, and 
 Selina began the preparations for her 
 wedding.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 In relating so much about her mistresses, I 
 have lately seemed to overlook Elizabeth 
 Hand. 
 
 She was a person easy enough to be over- 
 looked. She never put herself forward, 
 not even now, when Miss Hilary's absence 
 caused the weight of housekeeping and do- 
 mestic management to fall chiefly upon the 
 servant. She went about her duties as so- 
 berly and silently as she had done in her girl- 
 hood ; even Miss Leaf could not draw her 
 into much demonstrativeness : she was one 
 of those people who never " come out" till 
 they are strongly needed, and then — But 
 it remained to be proved what this girl 
 could be. 
 
 Years afterwards, Hilary remembered 
 with what a curious reticence Elizabeth used 
 to go about in those days : how she re-
 
 314 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 mained as old-fashioned as ever; acquired 
 no London ways, no fripperies of dress, or 
 flippancies of manner. Also, that she never 
 complained of anything ; though the dis- 
 comforts of her lodging-house life must 
 have heen great — greater than her mis- 
 tresses had any idea of at the time. Slowly, 
 out of her rough, un pliant girlhood, was 
 forming that character of self-reliance and 
 self-control, which, in all ranks, makes of 
 some women the helpers rather than the 
 helped, the labourers rather than the plea- 
 sure-seekers ; women whose constant lot it 
 seems to be to walk on the shadowed 
 side of life, to endure rather than to 
 enjoy. 
 
 Elizabeth had very little actual enjoy- 
 ment. She made no acquaintances, and 
 never asked for holidays. Indeed, she did 
 not seem to care for any. Her great treat 
 was when, on a Sunday afternoon. Miss 
 Hilary sometimes took her to Westminster 
 Abbey or St. Paul's ; her pleasure and grati- 
 tude at which always struck her mistress, 
 nay, even soothed her, and won her from
 
 MISTRESS AND :^IAID. 315 
 
 her own many anxieties. It is such a bless- 
 ing to be able to make any other human 
 being, even for an hour or two, entirely 
 happy ! 
 
 Except these bright Sundays, Elizabeth's 
 whole time was spent in waiting upon Miss 
 Leaf, who had seemed to grow suddenly 
 frail and old. It might be that living with- 
 out her child six days out of the seven, was 
 a greater trial than had at first appeared to 
 the elder sister, who until now had never 
 parted with her since she was born ; or it 
 was perhaps a more commonplace and yet 
 natural cause, the living in London lodg- 
 ino's, without even a chano^e of air from 
 room to room ; and the want of little com- 
 forts and luxuries, which, with all Hilary's 
 care, were as impossible as ever to their 
 limited means. 
 
 For Selina's engagement, which, as a 
 matter of decorum, she had insisted should 
 last six months, did not lessen expenses. 
 Old gowns vrere shabby, and omnibuses 
 impossible, to the future Mrs. Ascott of 
 Eussell Square; and though, to do her
 
 316 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 justice, she spent as little as her self- 
 pleasing nature could consent to do, still 
 she spent a good deal. 
 
 "It^s the last; I shall never cost you 
 any more," she would say, complacently ; 
 and revert to that question of absorbing 
 interest, her ti^ousseau^ an extremely hand- 
 some one, provided liberally by Mr. Ascott. 
 Sorely had this arrangement jarred upon 
 the pride of the Leaf family ; yet it was 
 inevitable. Selina must be fitted out suit- 
 ably for her new position : and by no 
 possibility could she have done this her- 
 self. But no personal favours would the 
 other two sisters have accepted from Mr. 
 Ascott, even had he offered them — which 
 he did not — save a dress each for the mar- 
 riage, and a card for the marriage-breakfast, 
 which, he also arranged, was to take place 
 at an hotel. 
 
 So, in spite of the expected wedding, 
 there was little change in the dull life that 
 went on at No. 15. Its only brightness 
 was when Miss Hilary came home from 
 Saturday to Monday. And in those brief 
 glimpses, when, as was natural, she on her
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 317 
 
 side, and they on theirs, put on their best 
 face, so to speak, each trying to hide from 
 the other any special care — it so fell out 
 that Miss Hilary never discovered a thing 
 which, week by week, Elizabeth resolved to 
 speak to her about, and yet never could. 
 For it was not her own affair; it seemed 
 like presumptuously meddling in the affairs 
 of the family. Above all, it involved the 
 necessity of something which looked like 
 tale-bearing and backbiting of a person she 
 disliked, and there was in Elizabeth — ser- 
 vant as she was — an instinctive chivalrous 
 honour which made her especially anxious 
 to be just to her enemies. 
 
 Enemy, however, is a large word to use ; 
 and yet day by day her feelings grew more 
 bittertowards the person concerned, namely, 
 Mr. Ascott Leaf. It was not from any 
 badness in him ; he was the sort of young 
 man always likely to be a favourite with 
 what would be termed his " inferiors," easy, 
 good-tempered, and gentlemanly, giving a 
 good deal of trouble certainly, but giving 
 it so agreeably, that few servants would 
 have grumbled, and paying for it — as he
 
 318 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 apparently thought everything could be paid, 
 for — with a pleasant word and a handful 
 of silver. 
 
 But Elizabeth's dislike to him had deeper 
 roots. The prmcipal one was his exceeding 
 indifference to his aunts' affairs, great and 
 small, from the marriage, which he briefly 
 designated as a "jolly lark," to the sharp 
 economies which, even wdth the addition of 
 Miss Hilary's salary, were still requisite in 
 the family. None of these latter did he ever 
 seem to notice, except when they pressed up- 
 on himself ; when he neither scolded nor ar- 
 gued, but simply went out and avoided them. 
 
 He was now absent from home more 
 than ever, and apparently tried as much as 
 possible to keep the household in the dark 
 as to his movements — leaving at uncertain 
 times, never saying what hour he would be 
 back, or if he said so, never keeping to his 
 ■word. This was the more annoying, as 
 there were a number of people continually 
 inquiring for him, hanging about the house, 
 and waiting to see him " on business:" and 
 some of these occasionally commented on the 
 young gentleman in such unflattering terms,
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 319 
 
 that Elizabeth was afraid they would reach 
 the ear of Mrs. Jones, and henceforward 
 tried always to attend to the door herself. 
 
 But Mrs. Jones was a wide-awake woman. 
 She had not let lodgings for thirty years 
 for nothing. Ere long she discovered, and 
 took good care to inform Elizabeth of her 
 discovery, that Mr. Ascott Leaf was what 
 is euphuistically termed ^' in difficulties." 
 
 And here one word, lest in telling this 
 poor lad's story, I may be supposed to tell 
 it harshly or uncharitably ; as if there were 
 no crime greater than that which a large 
 portion of society seems to count as none ; 
 as if,, at the merest mention of the ugly 
 Avord deht^ this rabid author flew out, and 
 made all the ultra-virtuous persons whose 
 history is here told, fly out like turkeys 
 after a bit of red cloth, which is a very 
 harmless scrap of red cloth after all. 
 
 Most true: some debtors deserve only 
 compassion ; such as the merchant suddenly 
 failing ; the tenderly-reared family who by 
 some strange blunder or unkind kindness 
 have been kept in ignorance of their real 
 circumstances, and been unwittingly spend-
 
 320 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 ing pounds for which there was only pence 
 to pay ; the various men or women who, 
 without any laxity of principle, are such 
 utter children in practice, that they have to 
 learn the value and use of money by hard 
 experience, much as a child does, and are 
 little better than children in all that con- 
 cerns L. s. D. to the end of their days. 
 
 But these are debtors by accident, not 
 voluntary wrong-doing. The deliberate 
 debtor, who orders what he knows he has 
 no means of paying for ; the pleasure-loving 
 debtor, who cannot renounce one single 
 luxury for conscience' sake ; the well- 
 meaning lazy debtor, who might make 
 " ends meet," but does not, simply because 
 he will not take the trouble ; upon such as 
 these it is right to have no mercy — they 
 deserve none. 
 
 To which of these classes young Ascott 
 Leaf belonged, his story will show. I tell 
 it, or rather let it tell itself, and point its 
 own moral ; it is the story of hundreds and 
 thousands. 
 
 That a young fellow should not enjoy
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 321 
 
 his youtli would be hard ; that it should be 
 pleasant to him to dress well, live well, and 
 spend with open hand upon himself, as 
 upon others, no one will question. No one 
 would ever wish it otherwise. Many a 
 kindly spendthrift of twenty-one makes a 
 prudent paterfamilias at forty ; while a man 
 who in his twenties showed a purposeless 
 niggardliness, would at sixty grow into the 
 most contemptible miser alive. There is 
 something even in the thoughtless liberality 
 of youth to which one's heart warms, even 
 while one's wisdom reproves. But what 
 struck Elizabeth was the fact that Ascott's 
 liberalities were always towards himself, 
 and himself only. 
 
 Sometimes when she took in a parcel of 
 new clothes, while others, yet unpaid for, 
 were tossing in wasteful disorder about his 
 room, or when she cleaned indefinite pairs 
 of handsome boots, and washed dozens of 
 the finest cambric pocket-handkerchiefs, 
 her spirit grew hot within her to remember 
 Miss Hilary's countless wants and contriv- 
 ances in the matter of dress, and all the 
 
 VOL. I. Y
 
 ^ 
 
 322 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 little domestic comforts which Miss Leaf's 
 frail health required — ^things which never 
 once seemed to cross the nephew's imagi- 
 nation. Of course not, it will be said ; how 
 could a young man be expected to trouble 
 himself about these things ? 
 
 But they do though. Answer, many a 
 widow's son; many a heedful brother of 
 orphan sisters ; many a solitary clerk living 
 and paying his way upon the merest pit- 
 tance ; is it not better to think of others 
 than one-self ? Can a man, even a young 
 man, find his highest happiness in mere 
 personal enjoyment ? 
 
 However, let me cease throwing these 
 pebbles of preaching under the wheels of 
 my story ; as it moves on, it will preach 
 enough for itself. 
 
 Elizabeth's annoyances, suspicions, and 
 conscience-pricks as to whether she ought 
 or ought not to communrcate both, came to 
 an end at last. Gradually she made up 
 her mind that, even if it did look like tale- 
 bearing, on the following Saturday night 
 Miss Hilary must be made acquainted with 
 all she knew and feared.
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 323 
 
 It was an anxious week, for Miss Leaf 
 had fallen ill. Not seriously; and she 
 never complained until her sister had left 
 for Kensington, when she returned to her 
 bed, and did not again rise. She would 
 not have Miss Hilary sent for, nor Miss 
 Selina, who was away paying a ceremo- 
 nious prenuptial visit to Mr. Ascott's 
 partner's wife at Dulwich. 
 
 " I don't want anything that you cannot 
 do for me. You are becoming a first-rate 
 nurse, Elizabeth," she said, with that 
 passive, peaceful smile which almost fright- 
 ened the girl; it seemed as if she were 
 slipping away from this world and all its 
 cares, into another existence. Elizabeth 
 felt that to tell her anything about her 
 nephew's affairs was perfectly impossible. 
 How thankful she was that in the quiet of 
 the sick-room her mistress was kept in 
 ignorance of the knocks and inquiries at 
 the door, and especially of a certain ominous 
 paper which had fallen into Mrs. Jones's 
 hands, and informed her^ as she took 
 good care to inform Elizabeth, that any 
 
 T 2
 
 324 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 day the " bailiffs " might be after Mr. 
 Leaf. 
 
 " The sooner him and the whole set of 
 you clear out of my house the better; 
 I 'm a decent, respectable woman," said 
 Mrs. Jones, with virtuous indignation ; 
 and Elizabeth had had to beg her as a 
 favour not to disturb her sick mistress, 
 but to wait just one day, till Miss Hilary 
 came home. 
 
 Also, when Ascott, ending with a cheer- 
 ful and careless countenance his ten minutes 
 after-breakfast chat in his aunt's room, had 
 met Elizabeth on the staircase, he had 
 stopped to bid her say, if anybody wanted 
 him, he was gone to Birmingham, and 
 would not be home till Monday. And on 
 Elizabeth's hesitating, she having deter- 
 mined to tell no more of these involuntary 
 lies, he had been very angry, and then 
 had stooped to entreaties, begging her to do 
 as he asked, or it would be the ruin of him. 
 Which she understood well enough, when 
 all the day she — grown painfully wise, 
 poor girl ! — watched a Jewish-looking man
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 325 
 
 hanging about the house, and watching 
 everybody who went in or out of it. 
 
 Now, sitting at Miss Leafs window, she 
 fancied she saw this man disappear into the 
 gin-palace opposite, and at the same moment 
 a figure darted hurriedly round the street 
 corner, and into the door of No. 15. 
 
 Elizabeth looked to see if her mistress 
 were asleep, and then crept quietly out of 
 the room, shutting the door after her. 
 Listening, she heard the sound of the latch- 
 key, and of some one coming stealthily up- 
 stairs. 
 
 "Hollo!— Oh, it^s only you, Elizabeth." 
 " Shall I light your candle, sir ? '^ 
 But when she did, the sight was not 
 pleasant. Drenched with rain, his collar 
 pulled up, and his hat slouched, so as in 
 some measure to act as a disguise, breath- 
 less and trembling, hardly anybody would 
 have recognised in this discreditable fellow 
 that gentlemanly young man, Mr. Ascott 
 Leaf. 
 
 He staggered into his room, and threw 
 himself across the bed.
 
 326 MISTEESS AND MAID. 
 
 " Do you want anything, sir ? '* said 
 Elizabeth, from the door. 
 
 "No — yes — stay a minute. Elizabeth, 
 are you to be trusted ? " 
 
 " I hope I am, sir." 
 
 "The bailiffs are after me. I've just 
 dodged them. If they know I'm here, the 
 game's all up — and it will kill my aunt." 
 
 Shocked as she was, Elizabeth was glad 
 to hear him say that — glad to see the 
 burst of real emotion with which he flung 
 himself down on the pillow, muttering all 
 sorts of helpless self-accusations. 
 
 " Come, sir, 'tis no use taking on so," 
 said she, much as she would have spoken to 
 a child, for there was something childish 
 rather than manlike in Ascott's distress. 
 Nevertheless, she pitied him, with the un- 
 reasoning pity a kind heart gives to any 
 creature who, blameworthy or not, has fallen 
 into trouble. " What do you mean to do ? " 
 
 " Nothing. I 'm cleaned out. And I 
 haven't a friend in the world." 
 
 He turned his face to the wall in perfect 
 despair.
 
 MISTRESS A^'D MAID. 327 
 
 Elizabeth tried hard not to sit in judg- 
 ment upon what the catechism would call 
 her "betters;" and yet her own strong 
 instinct of almost indefinite endurance 
 turned with something approaching con- 
 tempt from this weak, lightsome nature, 
 broken by the first touch of calamity. 
 
 " Come, it 's no use making things worse 
 than they are. If nobody knows that you 
 are here, lock your door and keep quiet. 
 I '11 bring you some dinner when I bring up 
 missis's tea ; and not even Mrs. Jones will 
 be any the wiser." 
 
 "YouVe a brick, Elizabeth; a regular 
 brick ! " cried the young fellow, brightening 
 up at the least relief. " That will be capital. 
 Get me a good slice of beef, or ham, or 
 something. And mind you, don't forget; 
 a regular stunning bottle of pale ale." 
 
 " Yery well, sir." 
 
 The acquiescence was somewhat sullen, 
 and had he watched Elizabeth's face, he 
 might have seen there an expression not 
 too flattering. But she faithfully brought 
 him his dinner, and kept his secret ; even
 
 328 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 though, hearing from over the staircase 
 Mrs. Jones resolutely deny that Mr. Leaf 
 had been at home since morning, she felt 
 very much as if she were conniving at a lie. 
 With a painful, half-guilty consciousness 
 she waited for her mistress's usual question, 
 " Is my nephew come home ? " but fortu- 
 natelyiit was not asked. Miss Leaf lay 
 quiet and passive, and her faithful nurse 
 settled her for the night with a strangely 
 solemn feeling, as if she were leaving her to 
 her last rest, safe and at peace before the 
 overhanging storm broke upon the family. 
 
 But all shadow of this storm seemed to 
 have passed away from him who was its 
 cause. As soon as the house was still, 
 Ascott crept downstairs and fell to his sup- 
 per with as good an appetite as possible. He 
 even became free and conversational. 
 
 " Don't look so glum, EHzabeth. I shall 
 soon weather through. Old Ascott will 
 fork out ; he couldn't help it. I 'm to be 
 his nephew, you know. Oh, that was a 
 clever catch of Aunt Selina's. If only Aunt 
 Hilary would try another like it."
 
 I^IISTRESS AND MAID. 329 
 
 " If you please, sir, I'm going to bed." 
 
 " Off with you, then, and I 'U not forget the 
 gown at Christmas. You 're a sharp young 
 woman, and I 'm much obliged to you." 
 And for a moment he looked as if he were 
 about to make the usual unmannerly ac- 
 knowledgment of civility from a young 
 o^entleman to a servant maid — viz. kissinor 
 her — but he pulled a face and drew back. 
 He really couldn't ; she was so very plain. 
 
 At this moment there came a violent 
 ring, and " Fire ! " was shouted through the 
 keyhole of the door. Terrified, Elizabeth 
 opened it, when, with a burst of laughter, a 
 man rushed in, and laid hands upon Ascott. 
 
 It was the sheriff's officer. 
 
 When his trouble came upon him, xA^scott's 
 manliness returned. He turned very white, 
 but he made no opposition — had even 
 enough of his wits about him — or some- 
 thing better than wits — to stop Mrs. Jones 
 from rushing up in alarm and indignation 
 to arouse Miss Leaf 
 
 "No; she'll know it quite soon enough. 
 Let her sleep till morning. Elizabeth, look
 
 330 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 here." He wrote upon a card the address 
 of the place he was to be taken to. " Give 
 Aunt Hilary this. Say, if she can think of 
 a way to get me out of this horrid mess, 
 I should be glad — but I don't deserve it. 
 Never mind. Come on, you fellows ! " 
 
 He pulled his hat over his eyes, jumped 
 into the cab, and was gone. The whole 
 thing had not occupied five minutes. 
 
 Stupefied, Elizabeth stood, and considered 
 what was best to be done. Miss Hilary 
 must be told ; but how to get at her in the 
 middle of the night, thereby leaving her 
 mistress to the mercy of Mrs. Jones ? It 
 would never do. Suddenly she thought of 
 Miss Balquidder. She might send a message. 
 No ; not a message — for the family misery 
 and disgrace must not be betrayed to a 
 stranger — but a letter, to Kensington. 
 
 With an efi'ort, EHzabeth composed her- 
 self sufficiently, to write one — her first — 
 to her dear Miss Hilary. 
 
 " Honoured Madam, — Mr. Leaf has got 
 himself into trouble, and is taken away
 
 MISTRESS AND ]MAID. 331 
 
 somewhere ; and I dare not tell missis ; and 
 I wish you was at home, as she is not well, 
 but better than she has been, and she shall 
 know nothing about it till you come. — 
 Your obedient and affectionate servant, 
 " Elizabeth Hand." 
 
 Taking Ascott's latch-key, she quitted the 
 house, and slipt out into the dark night, 
 almost losing her way among the gloomy 
 squares, where she met not a creature ex- 
 cept the solitary policeman, plashing steadily 
 along the wet pavement. When he turned 
 the glimmer of his bull's-eye upon her she 
 started like a guilty creature, till she re- 
 membered that she really was doing nothing 
 wrong, and so need not be afraid of any- 
 thing. This was her simple creed, which 
 Miss Hilary had taught her, and it upheld 
 her, even till she knocked at Miss Bal- 
 quidder's door. 
 
 There, poor girl, her heart sank, espe- 
 cially when Miss Balquidder, in an anoma- 
 lous costume and a severe voice, opened the 
 door herself, and asked who was there, dis- 
 turbing arespectable family at this late hour?
 
 332 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 Elizabeth answered, what she had before 
 determined to say, as sufficiently explain- 
 ing her errand, and yet betraying no- 
 thing that her mistress might wish con- 
 cealed. 
 
 " Please, ma'am, I 'm Miss Leaf's servant. 
 My missis is ill, and I want a letter sent at 
 once to Miss Hilary." 
 
 " Oh ! come in, then. Elizabeth, I think, 
 your name is ?" 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 ''What made you leave home at this 
 hour of night ? Did your mistress send 
 you?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Is she so very ill ? It seems sudden. 
 I saw Miss Hilary to-day, and she knew 
 nothing at all about it." 
 
 Elizabeth shrank a little before the keen 
 eye that seemed to read her through. 
 
 " There 's more amiss than you have told 
 me, young woman. Is it because your 
 mistress is in serious danger that you want 
 to send for her sister ? " 
 
 " No."
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 333 
 
 " What is it, then? You had better tell 
 me at once. I hate concealment." 
 
 It was a trial; but Elizabeth held her 
 ground. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, ma'am ; but I don't 
 think missis would like anybody to know, 
 and therefore I 'd rather not tell you." 
 
 Now the honest Scotchwoman, as she said, 
 hated concealment — hated anything under- 
 hand, but she respected the right of every 
 human being to maintain silence if neces- 
 sary. She looked sharply in Elizabeth's 
 face, which apparently reassured her, for 
 she said, not unkindly — 
 
 "Very well, child, keep your mistress's 
 secrets by all means. Only tell me what 
 you want. Shall I take a cab, and fetch 
 Miss Hilary at once ? " 
 
 Elizabeth thanked her, but said she 
 thought that would not do; it would be 
 better to send the note the first thing to- 
 morrow morning, and then Miss Hilary 
 would come home just as if nothing had 
 happened, and Miss Leaf would not be 
 frightened by her sudden appearance.
 
 334 MISTRESS AND MAID. 
 
 " You are a good, mindful girl," said 
 Miss Balquidder. " How did you learn to 
 be so sensible ? " 
 
 At the kindly word and manner, Eliza- 
 beth, bewildered and exhausted with the 
 excitement she had gone through, and 
 agitated by the feeling of having, for the 
 first time in her life, to act on her own 
 responsibility, gave way a little. She did 
 not actually cry, but she was very near it. 
 
 Miss Balquidder called over the stair- 
 head, in her quick, imperative voice — 
 
 " David, is your wife away to her bed 
 
 yet?'' 
 
 '' No, ma'am." 
 
 " Then tell her to fetch this young woman 
 to the kitchen, and give her some supper. 
 And afterwards, will you see her safe home, 
 poor lassie. She 's awfully tired, you see." 
 
 " Yes, ma'am." 
 
 And following David's grey head down 
 the staircase, Elizabeth, for the first time 
 since she came to London, took a comfort- 
 able meal in a comfortable kitchen, seasoned 
 with such stories of Miss Balquidder's
 
 MISTRESS AND MAID. 335 
 
 goodness and generosity, that when, an 
 hour after, she went home and to sleep, 
 it was with a quieter and more hopeful 
 spirit than she could have believed possible 
 under the circumstances. 
 
 END OF TEE FIKST VOLUME. 
 
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