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Pearson produced a special cut of costume for this ceremony, and Tembarom walked with Miss Alicia across the park to the square-towered Norman church. In a position of dignity the Temple Barholm pews over-looked the congregation. There was the great square pew for the family, with two others for servants. Footmen and house-maids gazed reverentially at prayer-books.
As soon as they are capable of learning, they are instructed in every branch of domestic economy; and as they grow up, and their several talents develop themselves, they are educated accordingly: some for instructresses, either in music or any general branch of education; others, as seamstresses, ladies-maids, cooks, laundry-maids, house-maids.
On still mornings, at the fire-lighting hour, when ghostly house-maids stalk the corridors, and thin streaks of light through the shutter-chinks lend startling winks and smiles to ancestors on canvas, twelve or fifteen thin stems of blue smoke sprouted upwards from these chimney-tops, and spread into a flat canopy on high.
House-maids left the steps half-scrubbed, and helped her measure out the corn and beans, gossiping eagerly; the newsboys "Hi-d!" at her in a friendly, patronizing way; women in rusty black, with sharp, pale faces, hoisted their baskets, in which usually lay a scraggy bit of flitch, on to the wheel, their whispered bargaining ending oftenest in a low "Thank ye, Lois!" for she sold cheaper to some people than they did in the market.
Indeed, the old housekeeper has the reputation, among the servants and the villagers, of being passing rich; and there is a japanned chest of drawers, and a large iron-bound coffer in her room, which are supposed, by the house-maids, to hold treasures of wealth.
The house-maids appeared, spasmodically, where house maids had no business to be. Doors banged and petticoats whisked in the upper regions. Something wrong depend upon it, something wrong! "We had much better go away. My dear, order the carriage" "Louisa, love, no more dancing; your papa is going." "Good-afternoon, Lady Lundie!" "Haw! thanks very much!" "So sorry for dear Blanche!"
When he got on well enough to build a shop for himself, he burdened himself with debt, building it firmly and well, so as to last out his boys' time as well as his own. When he was employed on the joiner-work of some of those large houses in Algonquin Avenue, he lost himself in reveries in which he saw his daughters employed as house-maids in them.
M. Pricker, the crown and head of the house, was sad and anxious, and the storm-cloud upon his brow threw a dark reflection upon the faces of his wife and two children, the beautiful Anna, and the active, merry Wilhelm, Even the assistants in the work-room were affected by the general gloom; the gay songs of the apprentices were silenced, and the pretty house-maids looked discontented and dull.
"I have something to ask you," she said. He smiled graciously, and opened his tobacco-pouch. He was fresh and strong after his night's sleep healthy and handsome and good-humored. The house-maids had had a peep at him that morning, and had wished like Desdemona, with a difference that "Heaven had made all three of them such a man." "Well," he said, "what is it?"
Then she indicated which bell rang into my maid's room and which for the house-maids, and with a few more polite wishes for my comfort, and the information that the room prepared for Augustus was some way down the corridor, on the right, she left me in McGreggor's hands. With great promptness the luggage had been carried up, so I was not long getting into a tea-gown.
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