tance.
There are a great many kinds; and if ever some travelled friend crowns
your collection with a mandarin's button, for one day at least you
won't feel a grievance worth speaking of."

I was feeling very much aggrieved as Lady Elizabeth spoke, and
thinking to myself that "it seemed so hard to be scolded out visiting,
and when one had not got into any scrape." But I only said that
"nobody at home ever said that I grumbled so much;" and that I "didn't
know that our servants complained more than other people's."

"I do not suppose they do," said my godmother. "I have told you
already that I consider it a foible of ill-educated people, whose
interests are very limited, and whose feelings are not disciplined.
You know James, the butler, Selina, do you not?"

"Oh, yes, godmamma!"

I knew James well. He was very kind to me, and always liberal when, by
Lady Elizabeth's orders, he helped me to almonds and raisins at
dessert.

"My mother died young," said Lady Elizabeth, "and at sixteen I was
head of my father's household. I had been well trained, and I tried to
do my duty. Amid all the details of providing for and entertaining
many people, my duty was to think of everything, and never to seem as
if I had anything on my mind. I should have been fairly trained _for a
kitchen-maid_, Selina, if I had done what I was told when it was
bawled at me, and had talked and seemed more overwhelmed with work
than the Prime Minister. Well, most of our servants had known me from
babyhood, and it was not a light matter to have the needful authority
over them without hurting the feelings of such old and faithful
friends. But, on the whole, they respected my efforts, and were proud
of my self-possession. I had more trouble with the younger ones, who
were too young to help me, and whom I was too young to overawe. I was
busy one morning writing necessary letters, when James--who was then
seventeen, and the under-footman--came to the drawing room and wished
to speak to me. When he had wasted a good deal of my time in
describing his unwillingness to disturb me, and the years his father
had lived in my father's service, I said, 'James, I have important
letters to write, and very little time to spare. If you have any
complaint to make, will you kindly put it as shortly as you can?' 'I'm
sure, my lady, I have no wish to complain,' was James's reply; and
thereon his complaints poured forth in a continuous stream. I took out
my watch (unseen by