"No, indeed," said Nell, whose native shrewdness told her that this was a woman who had to be conciliated. "I have never lived in anything bigger than a cottage, and I shall need all your help, Mrs. Hubbard. You will have to be very patient with me."
Mrs. Hubbard had been prepared to fight, or, at any rate, to display a haughty stand-offishness; but she went down before the sweet face and girlish voice, and, if the truth must be told, by a certain something in Nell's eyes, which shone there when the Annie Laurie was beating before a contrary wind; a directness of gaze which indicated a spirit, not easily quelled, lurking behind the dark-gray eyes.
Mrs. Hubbard instantly realized that this beautiful girl, young as she was, was compounded of different material to the "old frumps" who had preceded her, and whom Mrs. Hubbard had easily vanquished, and the old lady changed her tactics with rather startling promptitude.
She conducted Nell over the large place; the footmen and maidservants stood up, questionably at first, but respectfully in the end, and Nell tried to grasp the extent of the responsibility which she had undertaken.
"I think it all rests with you, Mrs. Hubbard," she said, as she sat in the housekeeper's room, Mrs. Hubbard standing respectfully—respectfully!—in front of her. "I am too young and inexperienced to run so large a place without your help; but I think—I only think—I can do it, if you stand by me. Will you do so? Yes, I think you will."
She looked up with the smile which had made slaves of all Shorne Mills in her gray eyes, and Mrs. Hubbard was utterly vanquished.
"If you come to me every morning after breakfast, we can talk matters over," said Nell, "and can decide between us what is to be done, and what not to be done; but you must never forget, please, that I know so little about anything."
And Mrs. Hubbard went back to the servants' hall with her mouth and her eyes set firmly.
"Now, mind," she said, with an imperial dignity to the curious and expectant servants, "there's to be no more goings-on from this time forth. No more coming in by the area gate after eleven, and no more parties in the servants' 'all when 'is lordship and ladyship is dining out! An' I'll 'ave the bells answered the first time, an' no waitin' till they're rung twice or three times, mind! An' if you want to see the policeman, Mary Jane, you can slip out for five minutes; he don't come into the house, you understan'!"
Little dreaming of the domestic reformation she had brought about, Nell went back to her room, and resumed her endeavor to persuade herself that she was not moving in a dream.