“As to that I shall hold Lizzette responsible; and now, while Lizzette will at once post you in regard to matters below stairs, I will give you our hours for meals, and shall expect you to report to me promptly every morning at ten o’clock to receive orders for the day. Lizzette will at present do my buying; but you must of course go with her until you have familiarized yourself with prices and materials. Here is to-day’s menu, which by the way, as to the main dishes, I always prepare myself. You may have noticed as you came through the house that the maids are in uniform. I shall expect you to wear one, and you will find your allotment of white aprons, caps, and kerchiefs in this basket. Here, Lizzette, you may as well invest yourself in one, too.”
“Helas! zese new idées vill do for la jeune fille like Elsie. Mais, ze brown face of Lizzette Minaud look not so well from under ze white cap. Still I obey ze mistress!”
“Just as you always did,” laughed Mrs. Mason, pressing an electric button, which almost immediately brought a maid to the door.
“Show Elsie, our new cook, to her room. Stay with me, Lizzette. I wish to speak with you.” Elsie picked up her satchel and basket and followed the maid, who eyed her curiously, but vouchsafed no word. “Here,” she said sententiously, opening a door of a roomy, comfortable bedroom on the third floor.
Elsie hastily entered and closed the door behind her. Then dropping satchel and basket, she threw herself on the floor beside them and cried out: “O Meg, Meg, Meg, how hard life is away from you and your serene courage! How lovely all our theories are until we have to put them into practice. I shall hate that woman, I know. Dear me! this won’t do. I shall have a red nose. Now let’s see how I look in the new prison garb,” and volatile Elsie bounded to her feet, and speedily invested herself in the white muslin cap with its narrow frill and the accompanying kerchief and apron.
“Not so bad, after all,” she said, as she eyed herself in the glass, and a roguish dimple nestled in her cheek as she viewed the picture. It was pretty enough to tempt the vanity of the Quaker maiden she resembled. The dainty frill above the black rings of hair, the fichu folded smoothly across her breast, and the long apron with its big pockets, seemed exactly fitted to the piquant face and slender form. “Well, there’s some satisfaction in not looking like a fright,” she said as she descended the stairs.
The morning-room door stood open and Mrs. Mason and Lizzette could scarcely repress a start of surprise as the dainty maiden stepped upon the threshold. “She look like ze picture of ze old time,” exclaimed Lizzette. Mrs. Mason made no reply as she handed Elsie a memorandum-book and pencil, which with keys to pantry and store-room were to be suspended at her belt.
“Now you are equipped, I believe, and Lizzette will take you in charge. I wish you the best of success.”
When the two had departed, Mrs. Mason stood where they had left her with downcast eyes gazing into the grate. “What a lovely face,” she mused. “So full of fire and strength and—well, yes, I suppose I must admit it—refinement! She looked like a queen in masquerade as she stood in the doorway. But then nature indulges in freaks of that kind sometimes. Lizzette tells me they were always as poor as church mice. What an absurdity I am perpetrating in putting her in my kitchen; but my old brown Lizzette is always as good as her word, and we shall see what will come of it.”
The force of servants in the Mason household consisted of James, the English-looking butler, of whom Elsie was secretly afraid, because his gaze of admiration was so open; William, the coachman; Martha and Mary, the two house-maids; and Jenie, the little kitchen-maid of twelve years. They all knew Lizzette, who, being a privileged character about the Mason mansion, was free to do pretty much as she liked, and when, in response to her call, they gathered in the below-stairs parlor, which also served them for dining-room, they received Elsie with unction.