LADY MARY. Come here, girl. Don’t be afraid.
(TWEENY looks imploringly at her idol.)
CRICHTON. Her appearance, my lady, is homely, and her manners, as you may have observed, deplorable, but she has a heart of gold.
LADY MARY. What is your position downstairs?
TWEENY (bobbing). I’m a tweeny, your ladyship.
CATHERINE. A what?
CRICHTON. A tweeny; that is to say, my lady, she is not at present, strictly speaking, anything; a between maid; she helps the vegetable maid. It is she, my lady, who conveys the dishes from the one end of the kitchen table, where they are placed by the cook, to the other end, where they enter into the charge of Thomas and John.
LADY MARY. I see. And you and Crichton are—ah—keeping company?
(CRICHTON draws himself up.)
TWEENY (aghast). A butler don’t keep company, my lady.