“I am rather big,” said she, “but if the beds are too small I can curl myself up.”
“I was not thinking of the beds,” said Mrs. Plunket, severely. “There are all sizes here. I am thinking of her ladyship. She is very strict and somewhat old-fashioned in her ideas. I am afraid she may object to your appearance.”
“Do you think so?” said Miss Perry, putting three lumps of sugar in her tea with the greatest amiability.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Plunket, sternly, “I do. It is most unusual. Had you been an under-footman of course it would not have mattered.”
“Don’t you think so?” said Miss Perry, who seemed to be more interested in her cup of tea than in the subject of the under-footman.
Now, Miss Perry had not a great brain. Indeed, in the opinion of those best qualified to speak upon the subject, she had not a brain at all. She was merely an amiable, frank, friendly person, constitutionally slow-witted and phlegmatic. The manner of her reception in the household of her august relation, whom she had never seen, and of whom the only thing she knew positively was that, in conjunction with the rest of that great family, she had treated her papa and her dead mamma abominably, ought to have given her furiously to think. No one, however, could have been less addicted to that process than Miss Perry.
There certainly came into her mind in a confused sort of manner a remarkable speech that had been made by her dearest papa when he opened the superb coroneted envelope and read Aunt Caroline’s letter. “I dare say her ladyship has a vacancy for an under-housemaid!” he had said, with his quaint and whimsical laugh, which had yet been so severely tried by the things of this world as to be not quite so mirthful as it might have been.
By the time Miss Perry had come to remember this circumstance a deep wave of color had crept over her wonderful countenance. But hers was the temperament of a philosopher. Instead of suffering an agony of horrified embarrassment, as some young ladies might have done, she merely regarded her tea and hoped to receive an invitation to partake of bread and butter.
“You have been in service before, have you not?” said Mrs. Plunket.
“Oh, no,” drawled Miss Perry, finishing her cup of tea and looking as though she would like another.