Closing the book she came forward and held up her face to be kissed, as she had always done to Mrs. Rolfe.
The maid—a pretty young girl, fresh from Devonshire—stared at her and looked half-frightened, while a crimson flush of embarrassment came into her face.
“Good-morning, miss,” she said, nervously, and hastily turned and fled.
Una looked after her a moment, and pondered; and she would have made a superb study for a painter at that moment.
How had she frightened the pretty girl, and why had she declined to kiss her?
Una could not understand it. Hitherto she had lived only with equals, and could not be expected to guess that it was a breach of the proprieties to kiss this pretty, daintily-dressed little hand-maiden.
As for Mary, the maid, she flew into the kitchen and sank into a chair, gasped at the cook, speechless for a moment.
“What do you think, cook?” she exclaimed, “that young lady—Una, as the mistress calls her—is up already. I found her in the drawing-room, and—and she said ‘Good-morning,’ and came up to me as if she—she wanted me to kiss her.”
“You must be out of your mind, Mary,” said the cook, sternly.
But Mary stuck to her assertion, and at last it was decided that Una was either out of her mind, or that she was no lady.