"Oh, indeed!" returned I, equally surprised and annoyed at this piece of self-assertion on the part of my old servant. "So you think, Mrs. Parker, that it is your place rather than mine to give warning to my domestics? I cannot say that I agree with you. I give you leave to choose and select the maids for yourself, and when they disobey you and give trouble I am willing to part with them on your advice; but servants shall not enter upon or quit my service unless I engage them or dismiss them myself. You have lived with me a great many years, Parker; but I intend to be master in my own house, and there must be a limit to your powers."
I had worked myself up into quite an angry mood by this time; as to Parker, she incontinently fell a-sobbing in the very middle of my speech.
She drew a little nearer when I paused, and, "Oh, Mr. Adolphus," says she, "my dear, dear master, 'tisn't nothing like as what you're saying. I wouldn't never go to ask for more power nor is my due here, and faithfully I've tried to do my duty to you these thirty years and more, but—but—but—there, sir, 'tis Sir Arthur Prynne's coachman, sir—him that has the south lodge and lost his wife a year agone last Martinmas; and, if you please, sir, I'd be glad and sorry, too, indeed, sir, to leave you this day month."
The murder was out now, but what a preposterous notion!
"My good woman, have you taken leave of your senses!" I asked.
"Please, sir——"
"But I do not please at all, Parker. Why in the world should you want to be married? It is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of. You are as comfortable as you can possibly be here; you have a good home, good food, servants under you, and, I hope and believe, a good master."
"Yes, sir," sniffed through a pocket-handkerchief.
"Then," I went on, warming with my subject, "you have good wages, haven't you? I'll raise them, if you wish it. And you have taken brevet rank, you know; why, all the parish calls you Mrs. Parker, and I do not believe there is a living soul besides myself that recollects your proper style and title should be Sarah Parker, spinster. Don't you see that you have everything to lose and nothing whatever to gain in marrying Sir Arthur Prynne's coachman? Why, he has I don't know how many children, and they will be the death of you, Parker; plague your life out. Now, do make up your mind to be a sensible woman and stay where you are, and I will see that you shall never come to want when your working days are over."
Anybody would have thought that I had given her reasons enough, and good ones, too, against this marriage, but wilful woman will have her way, and a most particularly obstinate and wilful woman Sarah Parker was in this matter. She wanted for nothing in my house, and she had loved me all my life, but Abel Driver's sons were all out in the world; one daughter was in good service, and the others were married; and, in short, her fixed intention was to become the coachman's wife and live in Sir Arthur's south lodge, so I gave up the point at last, merely observing: