of what her position in the house was to be. She welcomed,
therefore, this opportunity both of teaching Mrs. Redmain--she never
called her her _mistress_, while severely she insisted on the other
servants' speaking of her so--the propriety of taking counsel with her
housekeeper and of letting the young person know in time that Mrs.
Perkin was in reality her mistress.

The relation of the upper servants of the house to their employers was
more like that of the managers of an hotel to their guests. The butler,
the lady's-maid, and Mr. Redmain's body-servant, who had been with him
before his marriage, and was supposed to be deep in his master's
confidence, ate with the housekeeper in her room, waited upon by the
livery and maid-servants, except the second cook: the first cook only
came to superintend the cooking of the dinner, and went away after. To
all these Mrs. Perkin was careful to be just; and, if she was precise
even to severity with them, she was herself obedient to the system she
had established--the main feature of which was punctuality. She not
only regarded punctuality as the foremost of virtues, but, in righteous
moral sequence, made it the first of her duties; and the benefit
everybody reaped. For nothing oils the household wheels so well as this
same punctuality. In a family, love, if it be strong, genuine, and
patent, will make up for anything; but, where there is no family and no
love, the loss of punctuality will soon turn a house into the mere
pouch of a social _inferno_. Here the master and mistress came and
went, regardless of each other, and of all household polity; but their
meals were ready for them to the minute, when they chose to be there to
eat them; the carriage came round like one of the puppets on the
Strasburg clock; the house was quiet as a hospital; the bells were
answered--all except the door-bell outside of calling hours--with
swiftness; you could not soil your fingers anywhere--not even if the
sweep had been that same morning; the manners of the servants--_when
serving_--were unexceptionable; but the house was scarcely more of a
home than one of the huge hotels characteristic of the age.

In the hall of it sat Mary for the space of an hour, not exactly
learning the lesson Mrs. Perkin had intended to teach her, but learning
more than one thing Mrs. Perkin was not yet capable of learning. I can
not say she was comfortable, for she was both cold and hungry; but she
was far from miserable