women-servants. It was difficult to get any that would take
the place at all under the circumstances. 'What not so much as a mossul
to do one's 'air at?' they would say, and they'd go off, in spite of
extra wages. Then those who did consent to come, what lies they would
tell, to be sure! They would protest that they didn't want to look in
the glass, that they never had been in the habit of looking in the glass,
and all the while that very wench would have her looking-glass of some
kind or another, hid away among her clothes up-stairs. Sooner or later,
she would bring it out too, and leave it about somewhere or other (just
like the cook), where it was as likely as not that master might see it.
And then--for girls like that have no consciences, sir--when I had caught
one of 'em at it, she'd turn round as bold as brass, 'And how am I to
know whether my 'air's parted straight?' she'd say, just as if it hadn't
been considered in her wages that that was the very thing which she never
_was_ to know while she lived in our house. A vain lot, sir, and the
ugly ones always the vainest. There was no end to their dodges. They'd
have looking-glasses in the interiors of their workbox-lids, where it was
next to impossible that I could find 'em, or inside the covers of
hymn-books, or cookery-books, or in their caddies. I recollect one girl,
a sly one she was, and marked with the small-pox terrible, who was always
reading her prayer-book at odd times. Sometimes I used to think what a
religious mind she'd got, and at other times (depending on the mood I was
in) I would conclude that it was the marriage-service she was studying;
but one day, when I got behind her to satisfy my doubts--lo and behold!
it was the old story: a bit of glass, without a frame, fastened into the
kiver with the outside edges of the sheets of postage-stamps. Dodges!
Why they'd keep their looking-glasses in the scullery or the coal-cellar,
or leave them in charge of the servants next door, or with the milk-woman
round the corner; but have 'em they would. And I don't mind confessing,
sir," said the old man, bringing his long speech to an end, "that it
_was_ an inconveniency not to have so much as a scrap to shave before. I
used to go to the barber's at first, but I soon gave that up, and took to
wearing my beard as my master did; likewise to keeping my hair"--Mr.
Masey touched his head as he spoke--"so short, that it didn't require any
parting, before or beh