"Well, that was how mother's attempt to elevate Selina by moral means came to be a fiasco. The next time she tried to elevate her, it was by physical means. My mother left the suburb, and moved to a London flat very near the sky. She had given up hopes of improving Selina's matutinal habits, and made the breakfast hour later through my father having now no train to catch, but she thought she would cure her of followers. Selina's flirtations were not confined to our tradespeople and the local constabulary. She would exchange remarks about the weather with the most casual pedestrian in trousers. My mother thought she would remove her from danger by raising her high above all earthly temptations. We made the tradesmen send up their goods by lift and the only person she could flirt with was the old lift attendant. My father grumbled a good deal in the early days because the lift was always at the other extreme when he wanted it, but Selina's moral welfare came before all other considerations.
"By and by they began to renovate the exterior of the adjoining mansion. They put up a scaffolding, which grew higher and higher as the work advanced, and men swarmed upon it. At first my mother contemplated them with equanimity because they were British working-men and we were nearest heaven. But as the months went by, they began to get nearer and nearer. There came a time when Selina's smile was distinctly visible to the man engaged on the section of the scaffolding immediately below. That smile encouraged him. It seemed to say 'Excelsior.' He was a veritable Don Juan, that laborer. At every flat he flirted with the maid in possession. By counting the storeys in our mansion you could calculate the number of his amours. With every rise he left a love-passage behind him. He was a typical man—always looking higher, and, when he had raised himself to a more elevated position, spurning yesterday's love from beneath his feet. He seemed to mount on broken hearts. And now he was aspiring to the highest of all—Selina. Oh it is cruel! My mother had secluded Selina like a virgin Princess in an enchanted inaccessible tower and yet here was the Prince calmly scaling the tower, without any possibility of interference. Long before he had reached the top the consumption of Bass in our flat went up by leaps and bounds. Selina, my mother ultimately discovered, used to lower the beer by strings. It appeared, moreover, that she had two strings to her bow, for a swain in a slouch hat had been likewise climbing the height, at an insidious angle which had screened him from my mother's observation hitherto. Neither of these men did much work, but it made them very thirsty.
Lowering the Beer.
"That destroyed the last vestige of my mother's faith in Selina's soul. Like all disappointed women, she became crabbed and cynical. When my father's rising fortunes brought her more and more under the dominion of servants, the exposure and out-manœuvring of her taskmasters came to be the only pleasure of her life. She spent a great deal of time in the police-courts—the constant prosecution she suffered from, curtailed the last relics of her leisure. Everybody has heard of the law's delay, but few know how much time prosecutors have to lose, hanging about the Court waiting for their case to be called. When a servant robbed her, my mother rarely got off with less than seven days. The moment she had engaged a servant, she became morbidly suspicious of him or her. Often, when she had dressed for dinner, it would suddenly strike her that if she ransacked a certain cupboard something or other would be discovered, and off she would go to spoil her spotless silks. She had a mania for 'Spring cleanings' once a month, so as to keep the drones busy. Often I would bring a friend home, only to find the dining-room in the hall and the drawing-room on the landing. And yet to the end she retained a certain guileless, girlish simplicity—a fresh fund of hope which was not without a charm and pathos of its own. To the very last she believed that, faultless, flawless servants existed somewhere and she didn't intend to be happy till she got them; so that it was said of her by my sister's intended that she passed her life on the doorstep, either receiving an angel or expelling a fiend. It showed what a fine trustful nature had been turned to gall. She is at rest now, poor mother, her life's long slavery ended by the soft touch of all-merciful Death. Let us hope that she has opened her sorrow-stricken eyes on a brighter land, where earthly distinctions are annulled and the poor heavy-laden mistress may mix on equal terms with the radiant parlor-maid and the buxom cook."
The tears were in Lillie's eyes as Miss Eustasia Pallas concluded her affecting recital.
"But don't you think," said the President, conquering her emotion, "that with such an awful example in your memory, you could never yourself sink into such a serfage, even if you married?"
"I dare not trust myself," said Eustasia. "I have seen the fall of too many other women. Why should I expect immunity from the general fate? I think myself strong—but who can fathom her own weakness. Why, I have actually been talking servants to you all the time. Think how continuous is the temptation, how subtle. Were it not better to possess my soul in peace and to cultivate it nobly and wisely and become a shining light of the higher spinsterhood?"
Eustasia passed the preliminary examination and also the viva voce, and Lillie was again in high feather. But before the election was formally confirmed, she was chagrined to receive the following letter.
