be quiet, there might be
silence for a moment, but it would shortly be broken by Maria, calling
out, "I say, Dinah, don't you go for to wear green, my girl. I only
tell you friendly, but you're a deal too yellow for that. It suits _me_,
'cause I'm so fresh and rosy, but you never _will_ have my 'plexion,
not if you live to be eighty. Good night. I thought I'd just mention it
while I remembered." This used to aggravate Dinah dreadfully, and she
would retaliate by repeating some complimentary speech of Old Ben's, or
Long Tom's, the stockman, and then there would be no peace for an hour.

Their successors were Clarissa and Eunice. Eunice wept sore for a
whole month, over her sweeping and cleaning. To this day I have not the
dimmest idea _why_. She gave me warning, amid floods of tears, directly
she arrived, though I could not make out any other tangible complaint
than that "the dray had jolted as never was;" and to Clarissa, I gave
warning the first day I came into the kitchen.

She received me seated on the kitchen table, swinging her legs, which
did not nearly touch the floor. She had carefully arranged her position
so as to turn her back towards me, and she went on picking her teeth
with a hair-pin. I stood aghast at this specimen of colonial manners,
which was the more astonishing as I knew the girl had lived in the
service of a gentleman's family in the North of England for some time
before she sailed.

"Dear me, Clarissa," I cried, "is that the way you behaved at Colonel
St. John's?"

Clarissa looked at me very coolly over her shoulder (I must mention she
was a very pretty girl, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, but with _such_ a
temper!) and, giving her plump shoulders a little shrug, said, "No, in
course not: _they_ was gentlefolks, they was."

I confess I felt rather nettled at this, and yet it was difficult to
be angry with a girl who looked like a grown up and very pretty baby. I
restrained my feelings and said, "Well, I should like you to behave here
as you did there. Suppose you get off the table and come and look what
we can find in the store room."

"I _have_ looked round," she declared: "there 'aint much to be seen." My
patience began to run short, and I said very firmly, "You must get off
the table directly, Clarissa, and stand and speak properly; or I shall
send you down to Christchurch again." I suppose that was exactly what
the damsel wished, for she made no movement; whereat I said in great
wrath, "Ve