a pretty girl enough in those days, though looks
is less important than you might think to a housemaid, if only she
dresses neat and has a small waist. And I suppose I must think that
John really did love me in his scowling, black whiskery way. He was
a good footman, I will say that, and had been with the master three
years, and the best of characters; but whatever he might have
thought, I never would have had anything to do with him, even if
James and me had had seas between us broad a-rolling for ever and
ever Amen. He asked me once and he asked me twice, and it was 'no'
and 'no' again. And I had even gone so far as to think that perhaps
I should have to give up a good place to get out of his way, when
master's uncle, old Mr. Oliver, and his good lady, came to stay at
the Court, and with them came James, who was own man to Mr. Oliver.

Mr. Oliver was the funniest-looking old gent I ever see, if I may
say so respectfully. He was as bald as an egg, with a sort of frill
of brown hair going from ear to ear behind; and as if that wasn't
enough, he was shaved as clean as a whistle, as though he had made
up his mind that people shouldn't say that it had all gone to beard
and whiskers, anyway. He wrote books, a great many of them, and you
may often see his name in the papers, and he was for ever poking
about into what didn't concern him, and my Lady, she said to me when
she found me a little put out at him asking about how things went on
in the servants' hall, she said to me--

'You mustn't mind him, Mary,' she said; 'you know he likes to find
out all that he can about everything, so as to put it in his books.'

And he certainly talked to every one he came across--even the
stable-boys--in a way that you could hardly think becoming from a
gentleman to servants, if he wasn't an author, and so to have
allowances made for him, poor man! He talked to the housemaids, and
he talked to the groom, and he talked to the footman that waited on
him at lunch when he had it late, as he did sometimes, owing to him
having been kept past the proper time by his story-writing, for he
wrote a good part of the day most days, and often went up to London
while he was staying with us--to sell his goods, I suppose. He wore
curious clothes, not like most gentlemen, but all wool things, even
to his collars and his boots, which were soft and soppy like felt;
and he took snuff to that degree I wouldn't have believed any human
nose could have borne it,