Caldwell, "I shall go without you. But
you'll be punished for your wickedness some day, you'll see, and then
you'll be sorry."

Mildred had gone to be educated by a rich sister of her father's by
this time, Aunt Victoria and Bernadine usually went out with Mrs.
Caldwell, so it came to pass that Beth began to be left pretty much to
her own resources, of which Harriet Elvidge in the kitchen was one,
and a considerable one.

Harriet was a woman of well-marked individuality and brilliant
imagination. She could never separate fact from fiction in any form of
narrative, and narrative was her speciality. She was always recounting
something. Beth used to follow her from room to room, as she went
about her work, listening with absolute faith and the deepest interest
to the stream of narrative which flowed on without interruption, no
matter what Harriet was doing. Sometimes, when she was dusting the
drawing-room mantelpiece, she would pause with a china cup in one hand
and her duster in the other, to emphasise a thrilling incident, or
make a speech impressive with suitable gesticulation; and sometimes,
for the same purpose, she would stop with her hand on the yellowstone
with which she was rubbing the kitchen-hearth, and her head in the
grate almost. Often, too, Beth in her eager sympathy would say, "Let
me do that!" and Harriet would sit in an arm-chair if they were in the
drawing-room, and resign the duster--or the dishcloth, if they were in
the kitchen--and continue the recital, while Beth showed her
appreciation, and encouraged her to proceed, by doing the greater part
of her work for her. Mrs. Caldwell never could make out why Beth's
hands were in such a state. "They are all cracked and begrimed," she
would exclaim, "as if the child had to do dirty work like a servant!"
And it was a good thing for Beth that she did it, for otherwise she
would have had no physical training at all, and would have suffered as
her sister Mildred did for want of it. Mildred, unlike Beth, held her
head high, and never forgot that she was a young lady by right of
descent, with an hereditary aptitude for keeping her inferiors in
their proper place. She only went into the kitchen of necessity, and
would never have dreamed of dusting, sweeping, bed-making, or laying
the table, to help the servant, however much she might have been
over-tasked; neither would Harriet have dared to approach her with the
familiar pleading: "I say, miss, 'elp uz, I'm tha