r meant the going of the Jampot, and the
going of the Jampot meant the breaking of a life-time's traditions. The
departure was depressing and unsettling; the weather was--as it always
is during January in Glebeshire--at its worst, and the Jampot, feeling
it all very deeply, maintained a terrible Spartan composure, which was
meant to show indifference and a sense of injustice. She had to the very
last believed it incredible that she should really go. She had been
in the old Orange Street house for eight years, and had intended to be
there until she died. She was forced to admit that Master Jeremy was
going beyond her; but in September he would go to school, and then she
could help with the sewing and other things about the house. The real
truth of the matter was that she had never been a very good servant,
having too much of the Glebeshire pride and independence and too little
of the Glebeshire fidelity.

Mrs. Cole had been glad of the opportunity that Hamlet's arrival in the
family had given her. The Jampot, only a week before the date of her
departure, came to her mistress and begged, with floods of tears, to
be allowed to continue in her service. But Mrs. Cole, with all her
placidity, was firm. The Jampot had to go.

I would like to paint a pleasant picture of the sentiment of the Cole
children on this touching occasion; something, perhaps, in the vein of
tragi-comedy with which Mr. Kenneth Graham embroiders a similar occasion
in his famous masterpiece--but in this case there was very little
sentiment and no tragedy at all. They did not think of the event
beforehand, and then when it suddenly occurred there was all the
excitement of being looked after by Rose, the housemaid, of having
a longer time with their mother in the evening, and, best of all,
a delightful walk with Aunt Amy, whose virginal peace of mind they
attacked from every possible quarter.

The Jampot left in a high state of sulks, declaring to the kitchen that
no woman had ever been so unfairly treated; that her married sister
Sarah Francis, of Rafiel, with whom she was now to live, should be told
all about it, and that the citizens of Rafiel should be compelled to
sympathise. The children were not unfeeling, but they hated the Jampot's
sulks, and while she waited in the nursery, longing for a word or
movement of affection, but wearing a face of stony disapproval, they
stood awkwardly beholding her, and aching for her to go. She was the
more unapproac