“Forgetting your place?” cried Newman. “Why, you are remembering it. This is your place, you know. You are already in my service; your wages, as housekeeper, began a fortnight ago. I can tell you my house wants keeping! Why don’t you take off your bonnet and stay?”
“Take off my bonnet?” said Mrs. Bread, with timid literalness. “Oh, sir, I haven’t my cap. And with your leave, sir, I couldn’t keep house in my best gown.”
“Never mind your gown,” said Newman, cheerfully. “You shall have a better gown than that.”
Mrs. Bread stared solemnly and then stretched her hands over her lustreless satin skirt, as if the perilous side of her situation were defining itself. “Oh, sir, I am fond of my own clothes,” she murmured.
“I hope you have left those wicked people, at any rate,” said Newman.
“Well, sir, here I am!” said Mrs. Bread. “That’s all I can tell you. Here I sit, poor Catherine Bread. It’s a strange place for me to be. I don’t know myself; I never supposed I was so bold. But indeed, sir, I have gone as far as my own strength will bear me.”
“Oh, come, Mrs. Bread,” said Newman, almost caressingly, “don’t make yourself uncomfortable. Now’s the time to feel lively, you know.”
She began to speak again with a trembling voice. “I think it would be more respectable if I could—if I could”—and her voice trembled to a pause.
“If you could give up this sort of thing altogether?” said Newman kindly, trying to anticipate her meaning, which he supposed might be a wish to retire from service.
“If I could give up everything, sir! All I should ask is a decent Protestant burial.”