“I hope the faces that you see about you at home are not so unpleasant that you are glad to get away from them?” asked Muller with a smile.
The old man gave a start of alarm. “Oh, dear, no, sir,” he exclaimed eagerly; “that wasn’t what I meant. Indeed I’m fond of everybody in the house from our dear lady down to the poor little dog.”
Here Muller gained another little bit of knowledge, the fact that the lady of the house was the favourite of her servants, or that she seemed to them even more an object of adoration than the master.
“Then you evidently have a very good place, since you seem so fond of every one.”
“Indeed I have a good place, sir.”
“You’ve had this place a long time?”
“More than twenty years. My master was only eleven years old when I took service with the family.”
“Ah, indeed! then you must be a person of importance in the house if you have been there so long?”
“Well more or less I might say I am,” the old man smiled and looked flattered, then added: “But the housekeeper, Mrs. Bernauer, is even more important than I am, to tell you the truth. She was nurse to our present young master, and she’s been in the house ever since. When his parents died, it’s some years ago now, she took entire charge of the housekeeping. She was a fine active woman then, and now the young master and mistress couldn’t get along without her. They treat her as if she was one of the family.”
“And she is ill also? I say also,” explained Muller, “because the landlord has just been telling me that your mistress is ill.”