"Oh dear, yes," said Miss Susan, "and I wish we had got rid of her at the beginning. Since she has got infected with the rector's new religion, she has not been the same woman she once was."
"Yes, there is an obvious difference," said Miss Dorothy, "in her spirit, and appearance, and manners, which I cannot account for."
"Does she neglect her duties?"
"Oh no," said Miss Susan, "she does not neglect her work; if she did I should soon be after her. She used to sing a good song, and be as merry as a cricket; but no singing now, except some odd psalm; and she never appears happy but when going to church, or reading her Bible; and she is trying to get over the rest of the servants to her religion."
"Have you given her notice to leave?"
"Oh no, not exactly. I'll tell you, dear Mrs. Denham, how it was. I heard a whisper amongst the rest of the servants that the cook got up before them in the morning, and sat up after them at night; and I was determined to find it out, and the reason of it, for it did not look well; now, did it? So one night, when all the rest were gone to bed, I went down stairs very softly, and looked through the keyhole, and saw her reading her Bible; and I made up an excuse for going in; and I said to her, 'I think, cook, sleep would do you more good at this hour than that book, sitting up wasting fire and candle;' and she gave me such an insolent reply, that she ruffled my temper very much. She said, 'If I thought so, Ma'am, I should be in bed, but I like a little reading out of God's book before I go to rest; and if I do my work to your satisfaction, as I hope I do, I think you have no cause for complaint.' And the next morning she actually gave notice to leave."
"And I am sorry to say," added Miss Dorothy, "that just before we left home, the housemaid gave me notice."
"Why, sister, you did not tell me that. This is all our rector's doings. We were living as peaceably as a nestling of birds, till he began to preach the new doctrines of the new birth, and faith, and salvation by grace. I am sometimes tempted to wish myself in heaven, out of the way of these domestic miseries."
"Mr. Cole, in his sermon on Sunday morning, said that this evangelical religion is a spiritual epidemic; it spreads by the power of sympathy, and affects all alike. It is a prodigious evil."
"That's true; we will have no more of it in our family," said Miss Dorothy, "for our next servants shall engage not to go and hear our rector, and I will substitute the prayer-book for the Bible, for the servants to read."