"Well, for your sake, Miss Eva," said Mary, wiping her eyes.
"You know we all think you are a perfect jewel, Mary, and couldn't get along a minute without you. As to Aunt Maria, she's old, and set in her way, and the best way is not to mind her."
And Mary was consoled, and went on her way with courage, and with about as much charity for Mrs. Wouvermans as an average good Christian under equal provocation.
Eva went on singing and making up her vases, and carried them into the parlor, and was absorbed in managing their respective positions, when Aunt Maria came down from her tour in the chambers.
"Seems to me, Eva, that your hired girl's room is furnished up for a princess," she began, after the morning greetings had been exchanged.
"What, Mary's? Well, Mary has a great deal of neatness and taste, and always took particular pride in her room when she lived at mamma's, and so I have arranged hers with special care. Harry got her those pictures of the Madonna and infant Jesus, and I gave the bénitier for holy water, over her bed. We matted the floor nicely, and I made that toilet table, and draped her looking-glass out of an old muslin dress of mine. The pleasure Mary takes in it all makes it really worth while to gratify her."
"I never pet servants," said Mrs. Wouvermans, briefly. "Depend on it, Eva, when you've lived as long as I have, you'll find it isn't the way. It makes them presumptuous and exacting. Why, at first, when I blundered into Mary's room, I thought it must be yours—it had such an air."
"Well, as to the air, it's mostly due to Mary's perfect neatness and carefulness. I'm sorry to say you wouldn't always find my room as trimly arranged as hers, for I am a sad hand to throw things about when I am in a hurry. I love order, but I like somebody else to keep it."
"I'm afraid," said Aunt Maria, returning with persistence to her subject, "that you are beginning wrong with Mary, and you'll have trouble in the end. Now I saw she had white sugar in the kitchen sugar-bowl, and there was the tea caddy for her to go to. It's abominable to have servants feel that they must use such tea as we do."