ng responsible for all
the footman's works, and a young boy promoted in the face of my opinion,
having my own son worth a dozen of him. This made me look at the nature
of things, miss, and find it on my conscience to be after every body."

"Yes, Stixon, yes! Now do go on. You must always have been, not only
after, but a very long way after, every body."

"Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous. In a
heffort of the mind like this it is every word, or no word. Now, did
I see him come along the big passage?--a 'currydoor' they call it now,
though no more curry in it than there is door. No, I never seed him come
along the passage, and that made it more reproachful. He come out of
a green-baize door--the very place I can point out to you, and the
selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy of the mind that knows
it, by reason of having been covered up red, and all the brass buttons
lost to it in them new-fangled upholsteries. Not that I see him come
through, if you please, but the sway of the door, being double-jointed,
was enough to show legs, had been there. And knowing that my lord's
private room was there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful."

"Oh, do please to put out your words half as quickly."

"No, miss, no. I were lissome in those days, though not so very stiff
at this time of speaking, and bound to be guarded in the guidance of the
tongue. And now, miss, I think if you please to hear the rest to-morrow,
I could tell it better."

A more outrageous idea than this was never presented to me. Even if I
could have tried to wait, this dreadful old man might have made up his
mind not to open his lips in the morning, or, if he would speak, there
might be nothing left to say. His memory was nursed up now, and my only
chance was to keep it so. Therefore I begged him to please to go on, and
no more would I interrupt him. And I longed to be ten years older, so as
not to speak when needless.

"So then, Miss Erma, if I must go on," resumed the well-coaxed Stixon,
"if my duty to the family driveth me to an 'arrowing subjeck, no words
can more justly tell what come to pass than my language to my wife. She
were alive then, the poor dear hangel, and the mother of seven children,
which made me, by your leave comparing humble roofs with grandeur, a
little stiff to him up stairs, as come in on the top of seven. For I
said to my wife when I went home--sleeping out of the house, you see,
miss, till t