She had insisted upon making an arrangement with her relations which was especially antipathetic to their temperament. She paid a “pension” price for herself and maid of so much per diem, with deduction of one-half for board during absences of at least a week. In addition to this, she paid for the use of the carriage each time she drove out, according to a scale of her own careful concocting. So much per hour, so much per horse, so much if nobody else went with her. The whole thing was just like a hotel bill, and she enjoyed it immensely. “I am not going to sacrifice my independence,” she said. The Baron, of course, considered the business “disgusting”; but he never pushed his objections beyond a certain limit of opposing vehemence. He simply refused to have anything to do with the Freule’s laborious computations, and the Baroness was obliged to receive and receipt the monthly payments, which would sometimes remain on a side-table for days. Once or twice a dishonest servant took a gold piece without any one being the wiser.
The Freule did not approve of her sister’s domestics. Her own maid was perfection: angular (like herself), middle-aged, cross-eyed, cross-grained, and crossed in love (so she sometimes told Louisa), one of those bony asperities whose every word, like their every contact, cuts. The name this person gloried in was Hephzibah, and she belonged to a religious sect which was supposed to embrace exclusively the elect, although these, in the opinion of each individual member, were represented by a minority numbering one.
Nobody in the house knew half as much about himself or about any other member of the family as Hephzibah. Her mind was a daily chronicle up to date, with all the back numbers neatly filed. Fortunately, her exceeding taciturnity limited the circulation.
“Hephzibah, I am watching my niece,” the Freule remarked from time to time. “She has an interesting part to play in the comedy of life.”
“Yes, Freule,” replied Hephzibah, who thought life was a tragedy.
“Will she rise to the height of her position? I love my sister and I love Gerard, but I should like to see Otto conquer them both, and Ursula conquer all three.”
“Yes, Freule,” said Hephzibah. She hated the young Baroness, for Ursula had attempted to show kindness to Louisa, whose forlorn inanity called for pity. The Freule’s sharp eyes were far-sighted and weak; she liked being read to for hours together, and she frequently complained of her maid’s incapacity for pronouncing or punctuating anything, even Dutch.
“I will read French to you with pleasure, Aunt Louisa,” said Ursula.
“Oh no, my dear, no.” The Freule took her aside in great agitation. “I could not be so inconsiderate to Hephzibah, I could not. Oh no.”
Still, in a hundred small ways, too wearisome to relate, Ursula filled up her time with attentions to the little old maid. It was a relief to find some one she could do something for. She learned a lot of Rossini’s opera airs on purpose, because the Freule had stated that she “adored Rossini.”