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I took out my note, which contained a somewhat rudely penciled plan of the gate and the streets leading to it, just as I had been directed by the lady's-maid, and in addition the words "Eleven o'clock, at the little door." Two long hours to wait! Nevertheless I should have set out immediately, for I could not stay still, had not the painter, who had brought me hither, rushed up.
Perhaps a satiric observer of manners might have thought her more like a lady's-maid than a lady. A suggestion of pertness in her beady eyes, and a certain superciliousness of bearing were mingled with a coquetry not displeasing to one who surveyed her from the human height. To look important is pretty generally to feel important, but is, by no means, to be important.
Rising again up to the main level of the plantation, we walked into the boma of the chief of Unyambewa, Singinya, whose wife was my old friend the late sultana Ungugu's lady's-maid. Immediately on our entering her palace, she came forward to meet me with the most affable air of a princess, begged I would always come to her as I did then, and sought to make every one happy and comfortable.
Now, in all establishments whatever, of course some disparity exists between the comforts of the drawing-room and best bed-rooms, and the servant's hall and attics, but here it is no longer a matter of degree. The young woman who performs the office of lady's-maid, and the lads who wait upon us at table, have neither table to feed at nor chair to sit down upon themselves.
The lady's-maid, thus suddenly pulled up in a night forage after lovers, put a hand to her forehead to show that there was no mistake about her having begun to meditate on receiving orders to that effect, and said at last, 'You once told me, ma'am, if you recollect, that when you were dressed, I was not to go staring out of the window after you as if you were a doll I had just manufactured and sent round for sale.
Cyd obeyed the order to the letter, and paddled off to the sail-boat. Every thing was now in readiness for their departure, but Lily had not yet made her appearance. Cyd returned to the shore, and they waited half an hour, but the lady's-maid did not come. There was a stiff breeze blowing, and Dandy was impatient at the loss of a single moment of precious time.
I was too much amazed to utter a word, for, now that I looked closely, I recognized her at once; actually it was the pert lady's-maid of the Castle who had brought me the flask of wine on that lovely Sunday afternoon. She never looked as pretty as now, when, heated by her quarrel, she leaned against my shoulder, and her black curls hung down over my arm.
The great matter is to fix upon a possible chaperon at once, and get her well in hand before we arrive at Bombay." "But she seems so complaining!" I interposed. "I'm afraid, if you take her on, you'll get terribly bored with her." "If SHE takes ME on, you mean. She's not a lady's-maid, though I intend to go with her; and she may as well give in first as last, for I'm going.
The Malays are also a mixed race, like the Turks i.e. they marry women of all sorts and colours, provided they will embrace Islam. A very nice old fellow who waits here occasionally is married to an Englishwoman, ci-devant lady's-maid to a Governor's wife. I fancy, too, they brought some Chinese blood with them from Java.
'Not a penny of it shall I spend, says my Tom when he heard of it; 'we'll send our Mary to school with that, we will; and happen she'll be a lady's-maid and get on in the world. So we put her to boarding-school in Maidstone, and it was like tearing the heart out of my body.
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