t could desire. A liberal gentleman, and one
who gave but little trouble; always ready with a kind word, and a kind
deed, too, for the matter of that. There was not a house in all the
parish of St. George's (in which we lived before we came down here) where
the servants had more holidays or a better table kept; but, for all that,
he had his queer ways and his fancies, as I may call them, and this was
one of them. And the point he made of it, sir," the old man went on;
"the extent to which that regulation was enforced, whenever a new servant
was engaged; and the changes in the establishment it occasioned. In
hiring a new servant, the very first stipulation made, was that about the
looking-glasses. It was one of my duties to explain the thing, as far as
it could be explained, before any servant was taken into the house.
'You'll find it an easy place,' I used to say, 'with a liberal table,
good wages, and a deal of leisure; but there's one thing you must make up
your mind to; you must do without looking-glasses while you're here, for
there isn't one in the house, and, what's more, there never will be.'"

"But how did you know there never would be one?" I asked.

"Lor' bless you, sir! If you'd seen and heard all that I'd seen and
heard, you could have no doubt about it. Why, only to take one
instance:--I remember a particular day when my master had occasion to go
into the housekeeper's room where the cook lived, to see about some
alterations that were making, and when a pretty scene took place. The
cook--she was a very ugly woman, and awful vain--had left a little bit of
looking-glass, about six inches square, upon the chimney-piece; she had
got it _surreptious_, and kept it always locked up; but she'd left it
out, being called away suddenly, while titivating her hair. I had seen
the glass, and was making for the chimney-piece as fast as I could; but
master came in front of it before I could get there, and it was all over
in a moment. He gave one long piercing look into it, turned deadly pale,
and seizing the glass, dashed it into a hundred pieces on the floor, and
then stamped upon the fragments and ground them into powder with his
feet. He shut himself up for the rest of that day in his own room, first
ordering me to discharge the cook, then and there, at a moment's notice."

"What an extraordinary thing!" I said, pondering.

"Ah, sir," continued the old man, "it was astonishing what trouble I had
with those