"My own paper," she gasped, "the hussy! she must have stolen it. Clara Trall?--she recommends Clara Trall, a creature of whom I have never heard as a good maid--a maid! Oh! and she herself a sewing-woman too; a common, vulgar dressmaker. Mr. Mallow, Mr. Mallow, what are the lower orders coming to?"
"That is a very large question, Mrs. Dacre. At present, perhaps we had better confine ourselves to this one. Do you happen to know a Major Semberry?"
"No, I never heard of him."
"Did Mrs. Arne ever mention him?"
"Not that I know of. But, of course, I spoke but little to her. I will say she knew how to hold her tongue. Did Major Semberry know her?"
"I believe so. At all events, he gave my friend this address as Mrs. Arne's."
"And he a major too! Upon my word, it doesn't sound at all respectable. 'Enry (she lost her h's simultaneously with her temper)--'Enry shall know of this. Mrs. Arne recommending maids from our 'ouse on my writing-paper."
Mallow shrugged his shoulders. He had got all the information he was likely to get, so he prepared to take his leave. Mrs. Dacre was too intent upon her own grievance to attempt to stop him. At the door (whither she followed him) he asked her one more question.
"What was Mrs. Arne like, Mrs. Drace? Can you give me any description of her appearance?"
"A dark, foreign-looking person, with eyes always on the floor, and a tread like a cat. I think she was a foreigner, for all her English. Never, never shall a foreigner enter these doors again."