are to preserve strict
discipline, and exact prompt obedience in her own department, whatever
the mistress of the mansion might do in hers.

"Well, then, I will leave you and make your excuses to the general, and
you will follow me to the dining-room as soon as you can. We must not
keep dinner waiting any longer. You will excuse that ceremony, I am
sure. The general is an invalid, you know, and these matters are
important to his health."

And so saying, she glided away, leaving Lettice almost too much
astonished to be delighted with all this consideration and
kindness--things to which she had been little accustomed. But the
impression she received, upon the whole, was very sweet. The face and
manner of Mrs. Melwyn were so excessively soft; her very dress, the
color of her hair, her step, her voice; every thing spoke so much
gentleness. Lettice thought her the loveliest being she had ever met
with. More charming even than Catherine--more attaching even than Mrs.
Danvers. She felt very much inclined to adore her.

She was but a very few hours longer in the house before pity added to
this rising feeling of attachment; and I believe there is nothing
attaches the inferior to the superior like pity.

Dressed in one of her best new dresses, and with her hair done up as
neatly as she possibly could in that hurry, Lettice made her way to the
dining-room.

It was a large, lofty, very handsome, and rather awfully _resounding_
room, with old family pictures upon every side. There was a sideboard
set out sparkling with glass and plate; a small table in the middle of
the apartment with silver covers and dishes shining in the light of four
wax candles; a blazing fire, a splendid Indian screen before the door;
two footmen in liveries of pink and white, and a gentleman in a black
suit, waiting. The general and Mrs. Melwyn were seated opposite to each
other at table.

The soup had been already discussed, and the first course was set upon
the table when Miss Arnold entered.

Had she been a young lady born, an obsequious footman would have been
ready to attend her to her seat, and present her with a chair: as it
was, she would have been spared this piece of etiquette, and she was
making her way to her chair without missing the attention, when the
general, who observed his saucy footmen standing lounging about, without
offering to move forward, frowned in what Lettice thought a most
alarming way, and said in a stern voice, and sign