"It's both stuck up and med up she is," the Irish laundress declared. "She's that painted her own mother wouldn't know her. An' as for stuck up, her manners is that bad there isn't none of her girls will stay in her house the second month; they gets their bit of money and they goes. Sure my brother is coachman there, and it's seven years he's had the place."
"How can he rest zere," asked the French maid, "if she is so stuck up?"
"Ah, my brother is a steady lad, and they get on very well," Maggie returned. "He knows his place, and she knows her place, too. She never says nothin' to him, and he never says nothin' to her. An' it's a good job he has, an' he don't mean to let go of it. He keeps a still tongue in his head, Danny does; but there's months when, with his wages and with his board-wages and with what he makes on the feed, the place is worth more than a hundred dollars to him."
"It's as much as a man's place is worth sometimes to accept the commission you're entitled to," the valet remarked.
"Ah, but Danny's the boy!" the laundress responded, shrewdly. "It's too much he knows about Mrs. Playfair for him to lose the job; trust him for that! As long as he wants that place he can have it an' welcome; she won't never say nothin' to him."
"Is she a widow or is she divorced, zis Mistress Playfair?" asked the French maid.
"She's the wan an' the other," said the laundress, with a laugh. "Mr. Playfair, he took and died a week after the trial, barrin' a day."
"What's this I 'ear about your Mr. Van Allen and Mrs. Playfair?" Parsons inquired.
"Is there anything between them, do you think?"
The whistle was heard again, and the cook passed before them with a saddle of mutton; and for the moment the valet's question remained unanswered.