dy's maid; and Jenny quite
understood that Mrs Millicent took precedence of her.

"You take your seat at table, Jenny, next below Mrs Millicent. Of
course you know you are not to speak there? If any one should have such
ill-manners as to address you, you must answer quite respectfully, but
as short as possible. Well, now to tell you your duties. You rise
every morning at five of the clock; dress quietly, and when you are
ready, wake me, if I have not woke sooner. Then you dress me, go with
me to prayers in the chapel, then to breakfast in the hall; in the
morning (when I am at home) you follow me about in my duties in the
kitchen, stillroom, and dairy; you help me to see to the poultry, get up
my muslins and laces, and mend my clothes. In the afternoon you go out
visiting with me, work tapestry, embroider, or spin. In the evening, if
there be music or dancing, you can join; if not, you keep to your
needle."

Jenny courtesied, and meekly "hoped she should do her duty." Some
portions of this duty, now explained to her, were sufficiently to her
taste; others sounded very uninteresting. These were the usual services
expected from a lady's maid two hundred years ago.

"Very well," said Mrs Jane, looking round. "I think that is all at the
present. If I think of any other matter, I will mention it. Now ring
that little bell on the side-table, and Millicent shall give you your
first lesson in dressing my hair."

Jenny found that first lesson a trial. Millicent was quick and precise;
she gave her instructions almost sharply, and made little allowance for
Jenny's ignorance and inaptitude.

She seemed to expect her to know what to do without being told, or at
the utmost to need only once telling. Jenny found it necessary to have
all her wits about her, and began to think that her new situation was
not quite so perfect a Paradise as she had supposed it.

From this exercise they went down to supper in the hall, where Jenny
found herself placed at the higher table between Millicent and the
steward--a stiff, silent, elderly man, who never said a word to her all
supper-time. Robin Featherstone sat at the lower table; for the two
tables made the only distinction between the family and the household,
who all ate together in the hall.

The next discovery was that she must never ask for a second helping, but
must take what was given her and be content. Accustomed to the freedom
and plenty of the farmhouse kitchen, J