Very different was it with Norah's aged mistress, when, about a year afterwards, she gently sank to rest, in humble trust that He whom she had loved and served would receive her unto himself. By that holy, happy death-bed Norah learned a lesson which she never could forget. She nursed her lady night and day, and, when her gentle spirit was released from earthly suffering, the young servant mourned for her loss with grief most sincere.
Norah would then have gone home to her uncle, Ned Franks, had not Mr. Lowndes, the younger brother of her late mistress, at once offered to take her into the service of his wife. He knew well, he said, the value of such a servant as Norah, a really high-principled girl, who would be found honest in word as well as in deed.
In entering the service of Mrs. Lowndes, Norah had made a great rise in life. Instead of being the general servant of a clergyman's widow, whose narrow life-income barely supplied her need, Norah became the trusted attendant of the only child of wealthy parents, and earned wages which nearly doubled what she had received before. The place was one which offered many other advantages. Mrs. Lowndes was strict, indeed, almost to severity, but never intentionally unjust. She was extremely anxious that her Selina should be kept from all knowledge of evil. The little girl was seldom allowed to mix with other children, lest she should learn any harm from example. Mrs. Lowndes often boasted to her friends, that her Selina was brought up in such a habit of speaking the truth, that to her to utter a lie would be an impossible thing. The lady would not suffer any one to be near her darling in whose scrupulous truthfulness she could not place perfect trust. Truth, she would say, is the very foundation on which a character must rest. She would never overlook or forgive in a servant the smallest attempt to deceive.
Norah had passed several pleasant months in London, in the service of Mrs. Lowndes, with the consciousness that she was faithfully performing her duty and giving satisfaction to her mistress, when an incident occurred, which showed her more clearly than ever the importance of having a character for truthfulness and honesty.
"Why, there's your bell and my bell a-ringing together, and rung so loud, too! What can missus want us both for at once?" exclaimed Martha, the housemaid, to Norah, who was helping her, as usual, to make the bed in the little girl's room. Martha's manner was flurried and frightened.
"We'd better go and answer the bells directly," said Norah. "I hope and trust that nothing's the matter with dear little missy!"
The two maids entered the dining-room together. Mr. Lowndes was seated in his large red arm-chair, with his feet on the fender, and his spectacles on his nose, apparently engaged in studying the Times. Mrs. Lowndes, a large, tall, and rather formidable-looking lady, dressed in a very stiff silk, sat, even more erect than usual, at the breakfast-table, on which she was resting her folded hands. She had a peculiarly deep-toned voice, and the voice sounded deeper, her manners seemed sterner than Norah had ever thought them before, as she addressed the young maid with the question, "Did you enter my room this morning?"
"Yes, ma'am, to put by your comb and brush."
"And when?"
"Just the minute after you had left it."