“There, that will do,” said Mr Auberly somewhat sternly, as the girl appeared to be getting excited.
“Ring that bell; now, go downstairs and Hopkins will introduce you to my housekeeper, who will explain your duties to you.”
Hopkins entered and solemnly marched Martha Merryon to the regions below.
Mr Auberly locked away his papers, pulled out his watch, wound it up, and then, lighting a bedroom candle, proceeded with much gravity upstairs.
He was a very stately-looking man, and strikingly dignified as he walked upstairs to his bedroom—slowly and deliberately, as though he were marching at his own funeral to the tune of something even deader than the “Dead March in Saul.”
It is almost a violation of propriety to think of Mr Auberly doing such a very undignified thing as “going to bed!” Yet truth requires us to tell that he did it; that he undressed himself as other mortals do; that he clothed himself in the wonted ghostly garment; and that, when his head was last seen—in the act of closing the curtains around him—there was a conical white cap on it, tied with a string below the chin, and ornamented on the top with a little tassel, which waggled as though it were bidding a triumphant and final adieu to human dignity!
Half an hour later, Mrs Rose, the housekeeper, a matronly, good-looking woman, with very red cheeks, was busy in the study explaining to Matty Merryon her duties. She had already shown her all over the house, and was now at the concluding lesson.
“Look here now, Merryon,” began the housekeeper.
“Oh, please don’t call me Merryon—I ain’t used to it. Call me Matty, do now!”
“Very well, Matty,” continued Mrs Rose, with a smile, “I’ve no objection; you Irish are a strange race! Now, look here. This is master’s study, and mind, he’s very partikler, dreadful partikler.”