[IT IS MOTHER'S WAY.]
"IF you please, ma'am, you did not tell me how I was to set the table, so I did it mother's way."
The speaker was Mrs. Glover's new servant, a tidy-looking little maid, whose youth would have led any mistress to suppose that she had nearly everything to learn. But as Mrs. Glover glanced at the neatly-arranged breakfast-table she had a pleasant surprise. The most experienced waiting damsel could not have laid it more to her satisfaction.
She was going to praise the new servant in warm terms, but she paused before uttering the words which first came to mind, and only said, "It will do very nicely, Mary. Now bring in the kettle. Your master will be down directly."
Mrs. Glover, though a wife of not quite a year's standing, had already changed her one servant three times. She was beginning to talk as older mistresses do, about their domestics being the "plague of one's life," "necessary evils," and so on, and wishing she could do without altogether.
Ellen Dixon, the new girl, had entered on her duties the night before, and Mrs. Glover's was her first place. The lady had told her that she should be down early enough to show her how to lay the table for the eight o'clock breakfast. But she was not, and so the little maid had done her best, and her mistress was fain to own that the best was very neat indeed. She glanced round the room and thought how orderly it looked, and was going to say so. She paused, and instead of uttering further encouraging words, she bethought herself of past experiences, and of "new brooms," and only wished the present state of things might last.
Much to her surprise, things went on better as the little maid became more used to her place, and instead of having to teach, Mrs. Glover found herself a learner.
"Please, ma'am, where shall I find the dust-covers?" was Ellen's question when she was going to clean the grate in the best sitting-room.
"What do you mean, Ellen?"
Ellen blushed as if she had done wrong. "We had some old sheets like at home to put over our parlour things when the floor was swept and the grate raked. Mother said the things got more spoiled with brushing dust off than with using; so she patched some pieces of old stuff together to throw over them. They kept the dust off nicely. But we are forced to take care of our things. It was just mother's way."