"Everyone as I met. It took me best part of a day to clean up after her as came to Tompkinses'. She swilled herself in beer and tea, had meat three times a day, and hung tea and butter round her waist under her skirt just like a bustle when she went away in the evening."
"But surely she was an exception?" I commented.
"No, mum, they're all like that, every one of 'em," she replied firmly.
"But how are you going to manage now I am laid up?"
She hesitated for a moment, perhaps out of consideration for my feelings, but her own got the better of her.
"I shall manage all right," said she briskly. "In fact, I shall get along much better. Your helping hindered me terribly, mum. I hope as I'm not hurtin' your feelin's. You see," she added kindly, "you 'adn't been used to work, not with four servants; and when you did anythink I always had to be runnin' after you to wipe up the mess. You said you'd fill the lamps; well, you did when you wasn't putting the paraffin on the table—there was that to scrub, and your gloves and scissors to put away. And the day as you said you'd make a puddin', well—the sultanas was lying about like blackbeetles, mum, and flour all over the place just like a snowstorm. And it was, 'Amelia, put the pan on, please,' and 'Amelia, take it off,' and 'Amelia, put some coal on the fire, the puddin' water's stopped boilin',' and 'Amelia, the puddin's boiled dry.'"
She stopped for breath, and I looked drearily through the window.
"Hope you're not offended, mum, but I wanted you to hunderstand as how I could manage all right."
"I quite understand," I replied. "No, I am not offended. I am afraid I am not of much use in the world, Amelia," and I sighed.
"But the master doesn't seem to want you any different, mum," she said comfortingly. "He sits and looks at you as though you had won a prize at a show. Mr. Tompkins used to stare at his black prize Minorca just in the same hidentical way."