But the wonder of wonders, the riddle that none could read, the anomaly in Merleville society was Janet, or Mrs Nasmyth, as she was generally called. In refusing one of the many invitations which she had shared with the minister and Graeme, she had thought fit to give society in general a piece of her mind. She was, she said, the minister’s servant, and kenned her place better than to offer to take her tea with him in any strange house; she was obliged for the invitation all the same.
“Servant!” echoed Mrs Sterne’s help, who was staying to pass the evening, while her mistress went home, “to see about supper.”
And, “servant!” echoed the young lady who assisted Mrs Merle in her household affairs.
“I’ll let them see that I think myself just as good as Queen Victoria, if I do live out,” said another dignified auxiliary.
“She must be a dreadful mean-spirited creature.”
“Why, they do say she’ll brush them great boys’ shoes. I saw her myself, through the study-door, pull off Mr Elliott’s boots as humble as could be.”
“To see that little girl pouring tea when there’s company, and Mrs Nasmyth not sitting down. It’s ridiculous.”
“I wouldn’t do so for the President!”
“Well, they seem to think everything of her,” said Miss Pettimore, speaking for the first time in this connection.
“Why, yes, she does just what she has a mind to about house. And the way them children hang about her, and fuss over her, I never see. They tell her everything, and these boys mind her, as they do their father.”