So also, and solely for our benefit, she assumed a vivacity and spriteliness that ill suited her, that having regard to her age and tendency towards rheumatism must have cost her no small effort. From these experiences there remains to me the perhaps immoral opinion that Virtue, in common with all other things, is at her best when unassuming.
Occasionally the old Adam—or should one say Eve—would assert itself in my aunt, and then, still thoughtful for others, she would descend into the kitchen and be disagreeable to Amy, our new servitor, who never minded it. Amy was a philosopher who reconciled herself to all things by the reflection that there were only twenty-four hours in a day. It sounds a dismal theory, but from it Amy succeeded in extracting perpetual cheerfulness. My mother would apologise to her for my aunt's interference.
“Lord bless you, mum, it don't matter. If I wasn't listening to her something else worse might be happening. Everything's all the same when it's over.”
Amy had come to us merely as a stop gap, explaining to my mother that she was about to be married and desired only a temporary engagement to bridge over the few weeks between then and the ceremony.
“It's rather unsatisfactory,” had said my mother. “I dislike changes.”
“I can quite understand it, mum,” had replied Amy; “I dislike 'em myself. Only I heard you were in a hurry, and I thought maybe that while you were on the lookout for somebody permanent—”
So on that understanding she came. A month later my mother asked her when she thought the marriage would actually take place.
“Don't think I'm wishing you to go,” explained my mother, “indeed I'd like you to stop. I only want to know in time to make my arrangements.”
“Oh, some time in the spring, I expect,” was Amy's answer.
“Oh!” said my mother, “I understood it was coming off almost immediately.”