This was the maid servant, or household manager, Kitty, whom the reader may probably remember as the same serving wench who waited upon old Mr. Jamblin when he spoke his mind so freely to Richard Ashbrook in respect to his daughter Patty.
Kitty had remained in the same establishment after the death of her old master, and she was now chief domestic to his daughter and her husband.
She had watched the stranger from the very first time he entered the house. He read in her eyes that she hated him by instinct.
These antipathies are common enough with women, and are very difficult to conquer.
It touched his pique, and he resolved to wage war against her, for he knew that she was prejudiced against him, and that to remove any such prejudice in a woman of her class was next to an impossibility.
He addressed her at first with those silly compliments which are omnipotent with most girls of the lower class, because they are mysterious. These she spurned with a contempt which appeared to be genuine; so he changed his tactics and treated her with diffidence and reserve.
Soon, however, his aims were turned to another quarter.
He had liked Patty Ashbrook during the first few days as a pretty and agreeable woman, but of the two his senses had been captivated by the tall, athletic servant girl, whose arms, full of strength and symmetry, resembled those of the Amazons of old, and whose eyes seemed to flash real fire when they encountered his.
But one day he caught Patty looking at him, and in the languishing expression of these beautiful blue eyes, in that language which the eye alone speaks and is never false, he read that she admired him. This was enough, for he was vain, and, we might add, unscrupulous.
It was this look which showed him that she was lovely, that she was a prize which kings might have knelt to obtain.