Mrs Saint Clair Marter was a very diminutive lady, with a flat, countenance, and very frizzly fair hair. She gave a visitor the idea of having been a small negress carefully bleached or made “beautiful for ever;” while the first glance told that, had she really been a sufferer from the slave-trade, whatever others may have valued and sold her at, her purchase at her own valuation would have been a ruinous speculation. She was dressed in the height of ultra-fashion, and reclined upon a couch perfectly motionless, evidently for fear of making creases; for her dress was carefully spread out over the back and foot, with every fold and plait arranged as may be seen any day behind plate glass at the establishments of Messrs Grant and Gask, Marshall and Snellgrove, or Peter Robinson; and upon Ella’s entrance, Mrs Marter inspected her for full a minute through a large gold-rimmed eyeglass.
“Ah!” she said at last, with an expiration of the breath, and a look as if she had just made a discovery, “you are the young person recommended to me by Mrs Brandon?”
Ella bowed.
“Exactly. I have a good deal to say to you about the young ladies, but I’m afraid my memory will not allow me to recall it at present. I daresay, though, that I shall recollect a little from time to time.”
Ella remained standing; for Mrs Marter, doubtless from having to recall so much, entirely forgot to invite her dependent to a seat.
“I am very particular about my governesses, Miss Bedford,” said the lady; “and mind, I don’t at all approve of their making friends of, or associating with, the other servants. I expect, too, that the young person I have in the house to superintend my children’s education will rise early. The young ladies’ linen, of course, you will keep in order, and assist the nurse in dressing them of a morning. Let me see, I think Mrs Brandon said you understood German?”
“Yes,” said Ella quietly.
“And Italian?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
“French, and music, and singing, of course you know; but really I must make a point of examining you in these subjects, for the trouble one has with governesses is something terrible. They all profess to know so much, and all the while they know next to nothing. Where were you educated?”