l hadn't
let the kitchen fire right out!--Amusing herself down in the stable-yard,
I expect, Mrs. Cooper being gone.--And the business I've had to get a
kettle to boil!"

Verging on forty, tall, dark, deep-bosomed and comely, a rich flush on
her cheeks under the clear brown skin thanks to a kitchen fire which
didn't burn and righteous anger which did, Mary Fisher, the upper
housemaid, set a tea-tray upon the garden table beside Damaris' chair.

"That's what comes of taking servants out of trades-peoples' houses," she
went on, as she marshalled silver tea-pot and cream-jug--embossed with
flamboyant many-armed Hindu deities--hot cakes, ginger snaps and
saffron-sprinkled buns. "You can't put any real dependence on them, doing
their work as suits themselves just anyhow and anywhen. Mrs. Cooper and I
knew how it would be well enough when Miss Bilson engaged Lizzie Trant
and Mr. Hordle said the same. But it wasn't one atom of use for us to
speak. The Miss Minetts recommended the girl--so there was the finish of
it. And that's at the bottom of your being kept waiting the best part of
a hour for your tea like this, Miss."

Notwithstanding the exactions of a somewhat tyrannous brain and her
conviction of high responsibilities, the child, which delights to be
petted, told stories and made much of, was strong in Damaris still. This
explosion of domestic wrath on her behalf proved eminently soothing. It
directed her brooding thought into nice, amusing, everyday little
channels; and assured her of protective solicitude, actively on the
watch, by which exaggerated shames and alarms were withered and
loneliness effectually dispersed. She felt smoothed, contented. Fell,
indeed, into something of the humour which climbs on to a friendly lap
and thrones it there blissfully careless of the thousand and one ills,
known and unknown, which infant flesh is heir to. She engaged the comely
comfortable woman to stay and minister further to her.

"Pour out my tea for me, Mary, please," she said, "if you're not busy.
But isn't this your afternoon off, by rights?"

And Mary, while serving her, acknowledged that not only was it "by
rights" her "afternoon off;" but that Mr. Patch, the coachman, had
volunteered to drive her into Marychurch to see her parents when he
exercised the carriage horses. But, while thanking him very kindly, she
had refused. Was it likely, she said, she would leave the house with Sir
Charles and Mr. Hordle away, and Miss