only give her
ladyship the slightest idea of the average length of time that my lady
was to request Miss Galindo to sacrifice to her daily. "Three hours!
Very well." Mr. Horner looked very grave as he passed the windows of the
room where I lay. I don't think he liked the idea of Miss Galindo as a
clerk.

Lady Ludlow's invitations were like royal commands. Indeed, the village
was too quiet to allow the inhabitants to have many evening engagements
of any kind. Now and then, Mr. and Mrs. Horner gave a tea and supper to
the principal tenants and their wives, to which the clergyman was
invited, and Miss Galindo, Mrs. Medlicott, and one or two other spinsters
and widows. The glory of the supper-table on these occasions was
invariably furnished by her ladyship: it was a cold roasted peacock, with
his tail stuck out as if in life. Mrs. Medlicott would take up the whole
morning arranging the feathers in the proper semicircle, and was always
pleased with the wonder and admiration it excited. It was considered a
due reward and fitting compliment to her exertions that Mr. Horner always
took her in to supper, and placed her opposite to the magnificent dish,
at which she sweetly smiled all the time they were at table. But since
Mrs. Horner had had the paralytic stroke these parties had been given up;
and Miss Galindo wrote a note to Lady Ludlow in reply to her invitation,
saying that she was entirely disengaged, and would have great pleasure in
doing herself the honour of waiting upon her ladyship.

Whoever visited my lady took their meals with her, sitting on the dais,
in the presence of all my former companions. So I did not see Miss
Galindo until some time after tea; as the young gentlewomen had had to
bring her their sewing and spinning, to hear the remarks of so competent
a judge. At length her ladyship brought her visitor into the room where
I lay,--it was one of my bad days, I remember,--in order to have her
little bit of private conversation. Miss Galindo was dressed in her best
gown, I am sure, but I had never seen anything like it except in a
picture, it was so old-fashioned. She wore a white muslin apron,
delicately embroidered, and put on a little crookedly, in order, as she
told us, even Lady Ludlow, before the evening was over, to conceal a spot
whence the colour had been discharged by a lemon-stain. This crookedness
had an odd effect, especially when I saw that it was intentional; indeed,
she was so anxi