It was a dark, cellar-like place, with an equally cellar-like room of very small dimensions opening off it, where Nelly was to sleep. Many houses seem built on the principle—not the Christian one of loving our neighbours as ourselves—that "anything is good enough for servants," as if light, and air, and pleasant things to look out upon, were not just as much needed by them as by their employers! Kitchens and servants' rooms need not be luxurious. It would be doing servants an injury to accustom them to luxuries of which they would some time feel the privation; but many of them have been accustomed to pure, free air, and a pleasant outlook, and feel the reverse far more than is imagined by those who condemn them to live in underground cells.
Nelly felt her abode very dismal after the light, airy farmhouse. Even from her old attic-window she had a pleasant view of the river, and could always see the moon and stars at night; while from this the utmost she could see from the windows was a little bit of street pavement. But when she unpacked her bundle, and came upon her "watchword card," as Lucy had called it, her courage rose as she remembered that her heavenly Friend was as near her here as in the free, fresh country, and that where He was He could make it home. She could not have put this feeling into words, but it was there, in her heart, where doubtless He Himself had put it.
It was some time before Mrs. Williams thought of inquiring whether she had had any dinner. On her replying in the negative—she was beginning to feel quite tired and faint—Mrs. Williams, with a half-reluctant air, brought out of a locked cupboard some very dry-looking bread and cold meat, which she set before Nelly.
She was very hungry, so that even this was very acceptable, and she did justice to the meal. Before she had finished, a voice called from an upper story, "Mother, tell the new girl to bring up some water."
Nelly was accordingly directed to fill the water-can and take it up to the top of the house. After carrying it up three flights of stairs, she saw a door open, and a girl of nineteen or twenty, apparently engaged in performing an elaborate toilet, looked out from it.
"How old are you?" she said, as she took the water from Nelly.
"I'll soon be fourteen, miss."
"Well, you don't look it. You'll have to look sharp here if you want to suit us. Now, take these boots down to brush."
She spoke in a quick, sharp way, a good deal like her mother's; and her face, though tolerably comely, was sharp too. Miss Williams meant to "get on" in the world if she could, and her face and manner showed it.
Nelly found various things to do before she got back to her unfinished dinner, and then Mrs. Williams hurried her through, that she might get the kitchen made "tidy." In the meantime Miss Williams departed, in all the glories of a fashionable toilet, for her afternoon promenade, her mother regarding her with much pride and complacency. It seemed the one object of her hard-working, careworn life that her daughter should look "like a lady," and a large proportion of her earnings and savings went to effect this object.