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Updated: June 2, 2025
The subject may seem to border upon the ridiculous, as an influence upon one's general point of view; but at that time it was really more tragic than farcical, and I know that what was called "the servant question" as such it was gravely treated in books and papers, and even by leader-writers and lecturers formed the basis of a great deal of my mother's conversation, just as I am sure that it coloured her outlook upon life, and strengthened her tendency to worry over everything, from the wear-and-tear of house-linen to the morality of the people.
After wandering through several trunks and gloating over blouses, and skirts, and house-linen, and old friends the books were opened up, and before the Maluka became lost to the world Cheon favoured them with a passing glance. "Big mob book," he said indifferently, and turned his attention to the last trunk of all.
She took charge of the weekly accounts; she locked up the provisions and gave them out daily, after the manner of her defunct master; she ruled over two servants, a cook, and a maid whose business it was to mend the house-linen and make mademoiselle's dresses. Cornoiller combined the functions of keeper and bailiff.
"Do the German women buy the pots and kettles, as you call them, when they are married?" asked I, awkwardly, laying hold of a trivial question to conceal the indignant sympathy with her wrongs which I did not like to express. "Oh, yes; the bride furnishes all that is wanted in the kitchen, and all the store of house-linen.
It had become more or less their living-room since Innocent's departure, for Robin could not bear to sit in the "best parlour," as it was called, now that there was no one to share its old-world charm and comfort with him, and when Priscilla's work was done, and everything was cleared and the other servants gone to their beds, he preferred to bring his book and pipe into the kitchen, and sit in an old cushioned arm-chair on one side of the fire- place, while Priscilla sat on the other, mending the house-linen, both of them talking at intervals of the past, and of the happy and unthinking days when Farmer Jocelyn had been alive and well, and when Innocent was like a fairy child flitting over the meadows with her light and joyous movements, her brown-gold hair flying loose like a trail of sunbeams on the wind, her face blossoming into rose-and-white loveliness as a flower blossoms on its slender stem, her voice carrying sweet cadences through the air and making music wherever it rang.
I shall be down again to tea." So the old lady marched out firmly enough, but sister and nephew both knew right well that kindly tears, long kept back from a sense of dignity, would drop on the half-worn house-linen, and that in the solitude of her storeroom she would give vent to those womanly feelings she deemed it incumbent on her, as head of the family, to restrain before the rest.
Miss Pew was no less exacting than of old. Miss Pillby, for whose orphaned and friendless existence there had been no such thing as a holiday, and who had spent the vacation at Mauleverer diligently employed in mending the house-linen, resented Ida's visit to The Knoll as if it were a personal injury, and vented her envy in sneers and innuendoes of the coarsest character.
All but Emma, she had been astounded to discover, had already a complete outfit of house-linen to which they were now adding fine embroideries and laces. All could cook. Minna had startled her one day by exclaiming with lit face, "Ach, ich koche so schrecklich gern!"
The girl's fair, thin face wore its wonted expression of shrewd intelligence, and even now, however woeful her rags, it was occasionally brightened by a childish smile. Pierre and Marie, who were both there, felt extremely touched. Near them was Madame Mathis, young Victor's mother, who had come to help Mere-Grand with the mending of some house-linen.
Elkman was a bouncing beauty of a good orthodox stock, that she brought with her fifty pounds in cash, besides bedding and house-linen accumulated by her parents without prevision that she would marry an old hand, already provided with these household elements. The old clo'-woman's emotions were more mingled than ever.
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