regions of the house creaked under
slowly-descending footsteps. In a minute more the first of the female
servants made her appearance, with a dingy woolen shawl over her
shoulders--for the March morning was bleak; and rheumatism and the cook
were old acquaintances.

Receiving the dog's first cordial advances with the worst possible
grace, the cook slowly opened the hall door and let the animal out. It
was a wild morning. Over a spacious lawn, and behind a black plantation
of firs, the rising sun rent its way upward through piles of ragged
gray cloud; heavy drops of rain fell few and far between; the March
wind shuddered round the corners of the house, and the wet trees swayed
wearily.

Seven o'clock struck; and the signs of domestic life began to show
themselves in more rapid succession.

The housemaid came down--tall and slim, with the state of the spring
temperature written redly on her nose. The lady's-maid followed--young,
smart, plump, and sleepy. The kitchen-maid came next--afflicted with
the face-ache, and making no secret of her sufferings. Last of all, the
footman appeared, yawning disconsolately; the living picture of a man
who felt that he had been defrauded of his fair night's rest.

The conversation of the servants, when they assembled before the slowly
lighting kitchen fire, referred to a recent family event, and turned at
starting on this question: Had Thomas, the footman, seen anything of
the concert at Clifton, at which his master and the two young ladies had
been present on the previous night? Yes; Thomas had heard the concert;
he had been paid for to go in at the back; it was a loud concert; it
was a hot concert; it was described at the top of the bills as Grand;
whether it was worth traveling sixteen miles to hear by railway,
with the additional hardship of going back nineteen miles by road, at
half-past one in the morning--was a question which he would leave his
master and the young ladies to decide; his own opinion, in the meantime,
being unhesitatingly, No. Further inquiries, on the part of all the
female servants in succession, elicited no additional information of any
sort. Thomas could hum none of the songs, and could describe none of the
ladies' dresses. His audience, accordingly, gave him up in despair; and
the kitchen small-talk flowed back into its ordinary channels, until the
clock struck eight and startled the assembled servants into separating
for their morning's work.

A quarter