Sir Denis, who was becoming garrulous in old age, would slip off
into some reminiscence of the younger brother to whom he had been
tenderly attached, and for whom he had also a certain hero-worship
because he had been so fine and heroic a soldier.

Certainly it said well for the servants whom Sir Denis and Nelly had
chosen for themselves that they fell in so completely with the kindness
and honesty and good-will of the house. Some credit was doubtless due
also to Sir Denis's soldier servant, whom he had installed as butler;
for Pat's loyalty and devotion to "Old Blood and Thunder" must have
influenced the class of persons who are so susceptible of impressions
from those of their own station, while the standards and exhortations of
their social superiors are as though they were not. Pat was lynx-eyed
for a malingerer in his Honour's service; and, indeed, where the rule
was so easy and pleasant there was no excuse for malingering. Pat, too,
was ably seconded by Bridget, the cook, who had come in originally as
kitchen-maid, and had in time taken the place of the very important and
pretentious functionary with whom they had started, and whose cookery
did not at all suit Sir Denis's digestion, impaired somewhat by long
years in India. The young kitchen-maid had taken the cook's place during
the latter's holiday, and had sent up for Sir Denis's dinner a little
clear soup, a bit of turbot with a sauce which was in itself genius, a
bird roasted to the nicest golden brown, and a pudding which was only
ground rice, but had an insubstantial delicacy about it quite unlike
what one associates with the homely cereal.

"You've saved my life, my girl," said Sir Denis, meeting Bridget on the
stairs the morning after this banquet, and presenting her with a golden
sovereign, "and if you like to stay on as cook at forty pounds a year,
why so you shall."

"You could shave yourself in her sauce-pans, your Honour," said Pat,
when he heard of this amazing promotion. It was Pat's way of saying that
Bridget polished her utensils till they reflected like a mirror. "She's
a rale good little girsha, that's what she is, the same Bridget; and I'm
rale glad, your Honour, that ould consiquince isn't comin' back again."

After that there were few changes. The servants were in clover, and
since Pat and Bridget knew it, and impressed it on their subordinates,
it came to be a generally recognised fact. To be sure, it made it
pleasanter for everyone in t