that now he is living on shore, he will be waited on by women-servants alone.  The one man in the house is an old sailor, who has been all his life with his master—­he is a kind of pensioner at St. Crux, and has little or nothing to do with the housework.  The other servants, indoors, are all women; and instead of a footman to wait on him at dinner, the admiral has a parlor-maid.  The parlor-maid now at St. Crux is engaged to be married, and as soon as her master can suit himself she is going away.  These discoveries I made some days since.  But when I saw Mrs. Attwood to-night, she had received another letter from her daughter in the interval, and that letter has helped me to find out something more.  The housekeeper is at her wits’ end to find a new servant.  Her master insists on youth and good looks—­he leaves everything else to the housekeeper—­but he will have that.  All the inquiries made in the neighborhood have failed to produce the sort of parlor-maid whom the admiral wants.  If nothing can be done in the next fortnight or three weeks, the housekeeper will advertise in the Times, and will come to London herself to see the applicants, and to make strict personal inquiry into their characters.”

Louisa looked at her mistress more attentively than ever.  The expression of perplexity left her face, and a shade of disappointment appeared there in its stead.  “Bear in mind what I have said,” pursued Magdalen; “and wait a minute more, while I ask you some questions.  Don’t think you understand me yet—­I can assure you, you don’t understand me.  Have you always lived in service as lady’s maid?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Have you ever lived as parlor-maid?”

“Only in one place, ma’am, and not for long there.”

“I suppose you lived long enough to learn your duties?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What were your duties besides waiting at table?”

“I had to show visitors in.”

“Yes; and what else?”

“I had the plate and the glass to look after; and the table-linen was all under my care.  I had to answer all the bells, except in the bedrooms.  There were other little odds and ends sometimes to do—­”

“But your regular duties were the duties you have just mentioned?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How long ago is it since you lived in service as a parlor-maid?”

“A little better than two years, ma’am.”

“I suppose you have not forgotten how to wait at table, and clean plate, and the rest of it, in that time?”

At this question Louisa’s attention, which had been wandering more and more during the progress of Magdalen’s inquiries, wandered away altogether.  Her gathering anxieties got the better of her discretion, and even of her timidity.  Instead of answering her mistress, she suddenly and confusedly ventured on a question of her own.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” she said.  “Did you mean me to offer for the parlor-maid’s place at St. Crux?”