But when Rose was actually gone, Mrs. Carteret found herself in a difficulty. She disliked the idea of a successor to Rose being found, because her narrow, grasping nature was of the small tyrant order, and she could not endure that in her house there should be any one who did not owe allegiance to her.
Another reason was to be found in Mrs. Carteret's parsimony. She was as avaricious as she was despotic, and both these passions were stirred within her when she asked Margaret, in the most distant and uninterested tone which even she could assume, whether she had yet made any arrangements about replacing Rose Moore. "Moore," she called her, after the English fashion, which had been a deadly offence to Rose.
"Calling you as if you were either a man or a dog," the indignant damsel had said.
"It's the English fashion, Rose," Margaret had pleaded in mitigation.
"Then it's like more of their fashions, and they ought to be ashamed of it, and would if they were Christians. However, I suppose English servants put up with that, or anythin' else, for their four meals a-day, and snacks into the bargain, and their beer, and the liberty their clargy gives them to backbite their masters and mistresses."
Margaret tried to explain that neither in this nor in any other particular were the objects of Rose's indignant scorn in the habit of applying to their "clargy:" but this was an enormity which she found the girl's mind was quite incapable of receiving as a truth.
Mrs. Hungerford replied to Mrs. Carteret's question, that she had no intention of providing a successor for Rose Moore.
"I should have thought it quite unnecessary to tell you so," she said, rather angrily. "You can hardly suppose I am in a position to keep a maid. Even if I were for the present, to accustom myself to any luxury which I must lose at the end of six months would be unpardonable folly and weakness."
"You are quite right, my dear," said Mrs. Carteret, with a cordial tone in her voice, and a side-glance in her eye of intense dislike of the speaker. "I admire your correct and self-denying principle, but I am not sure that your father will like it. While you stay with us, I am sure he would not wish you to be without a maid."
Margaret did not take much trouble to conceal the contempt which animated the smile that she permitted to pass slowly over her face as she replied: