a maid-servant who can attend to me--crimp my lace borders,
clear starch, iron aprons, make bows, and do needlework, also help below
stairs when fine cooking is needed. My son brings in a friend to supper
sometimes, for cribbage, and he is very particular about the pastry
being light, and the Welsh rabbit done to a turn. Have you ever made a
Welsh rabbit--toasted cheese, you know, wetted with a little ale?'

'I daresay I can do it,' Bryda said.

'Well, added to this, you must dust the chayney. I have very fine
chayney. And you'll have to rub the oak bureaus and clean the brass. If
you serve my purpose I shall get no more sluts as maids, but keep going
with Mrs Symes, who comes every morning, and Sam the footboy. Then I
expect you to be pretty, trim, and neat in the afternoon, and sit here
and read to me, darn stockings--my son's and mine--and mend fine lace,
and--well--a hundred other jobs which I need not count up now. There is
no one in the house but yourself and an apprentice, who is bound to my
son--worse luck--an idle good-for-nothing, with whom you may just
civilly pass the time of day, but no more. He is not a companion fit for
any young woman--a wild scapegrace. Mr Lambert would be glad to be quit
of him. Now, if your box is taken to your chamber, you may go and lay
aside your hood. I suppose you have more gowns than that you stand up
in?'

'Yes, I have changes of gowns and aprons.'

'Very well, I think you will suit me. Mr Lambert comes into his dinner
at half after one o'clock; it is near that now. You can take your meals
with us, and see my friends when they visit me. There, now, I think you
are a very lucky young person--be off to your chamber--first door on the
second flight.'

Bryda hastened to obey, and was thankful to get a few minutes to
herself.

Mrs Lambert seemed satisfied, but it was Mr Lambert whom she wanted to
see, and she dare not address him before his mother.

On the second day after her arrival Mrs Lambert said there would be
friends to sup, and Bryda must make a cake and some apple pies, and Mrs
Symes had her orders to put things ready for her in the kitchen.

Up to this time the glimpse Bryda had of the apprentice at the door was
all she had seen of him.

But when she went down into the kitchen at twelve o'clock she found him
seated at a very untempting meal, with Sam the footboy and Mrs Symes.

But whether the repast was tempting or not made but little difference to
Chatterton