t up with, and nobody as wasn't a mean spereted creetur could
expect it of me, which it's not as I wish to speak disrespectful of
her ladyship, which I considers a lady and as allers treated me as
sich, only expectin' to hend my days in Chetwyn it's come, sudden
like; but thanks to the blessed saints, which I 'ave put by as will
keep me from the wukkus and a charge on nobody; and I'd like to give
warnin', if you please, miss, and if so be as I could leave before
monseer arrive."

Here Martha paused, not from lack of material, but from sheer want of
breath. She would have been invincible in conversation but for that
fatal constitutional infirmity--shortness of breath. This brought her
to a pause in the full flow of her eloquence.

Hilda took advantage of the lull.

"Your mistress," said she, "feared that you would feel as you do on
the subject, and her instructions to me were these: 'Try and keep
Martha if you possibly can--we shall not easily replace her; but if
she seems to fear that this new French cook may be domineering'"
(fresh and alarming symptoms of apoplexy), "'and may make it
uncomfortable for her, we must think of her instead of ourselves. She
has been too faithful a servant to allow her to be trampled upon now;
and if you find that she will not really consent to stop, you must
get her a good place--'"

"Which, if you please, mum," said Martha, interrupting her excitedly,
"we won't talk about a place--it is utterly useless, and I might be
forgettin' myself; but I never thought," she continued, brushing away
a hasty tear, "as it was Master Guy, meaning my lord, as would send
old Martha away."

"Oh, I am sure he did not mean to do that," said Hilda, kindly; "but
gentlemen have not much consideration, you know, and he is accustomed
to French cookery." The softer mood vanished at the hated name.

"And he'll never grow to be the man his father were," said she,
excitedly, "on them furrin gimcracks and kickshaws as wouldn't
nourish a babby, let alone a full-growed man, and 'e a Henglishman.
But it's furrin parts as does it. I never approved of the harmy."

"Her ladyship told me," said Hilda, with her usual placidity, and
without taking any notice of the excited feeling of the other, "that
if you insisted on going I was to give you twenty pounds, with her
kind regards, to buy some remembrance."

"Which she's very kind," rejoined Martha, rather quickly, and with
some degree of asperity; "and if you'll give h