“When will your ladyship get up?”
“Oh, now,” she answered, “it’s all hours.”
“When shall I come back?”
“I can dress myself, thank ye.”
“But your hair, my lady?”
“Yes, I always do it meeself.”
“Then you will ring if you want me. I’ve left out your blue cloth; it”—pause—“fastens up the back.”
As Justine closed the door, her ladyship slid out of bed and ran, barefooted, to the window. Before her eyes lay a heavily timbered park, so large, that it gave her the impression of being boundless. A silvery frost sparkled on the grass. Beneath the window was a pleasure-garden with gravel walks and marble steps and statues, where three men with brooms and a barrow were languidly sweeping up the dead leaves. Somehow the stately spacious outlook, impressed Joseline, even more than the interior of the house.
When breakfast arrived, she was already dressed, all but the fastening of her gown, and, unaware of the enormity, she requested the housemaid “to give her a hook up.” Of course it was not Marston’s business, and she might get into trouble with Ma’mselle; but the new-comer had no idea of the hard and fast lines of domestic service—or indeed that there were any lines at all. After a hearty meal, Joseline ventured forth into the wide corridors, down a grand staircase, and was presently lost among the intricacies of an immense, rambling mansion. There were long passages, lined with sporting pictures, and covered with thick red carpets, where she encountered soft-footed men-servants, who stared and stood aside. She discovered a billiard-room, then, opening a swing door, a cloak-room, and suddenly found herself in what appeared to be the butler’s pantry, where two youths in shirt-sleeves seemed not a little startled by her visit. She had opened the wrong swing door, and, in beating a nervous retreat, came face to face with her father in shooting kit. He seemed surprised and pleased, as he exclaimed—