Miss Reinhart, “speaking solely in the interests of Sir Roland,” wished the dinner hour to be changed; it would be more convenient and suitable to Sir Roland if it were an hour later.  The housekeeper said that to make it an hour later would be to disturb all the arrangements of the house, and it could not be done.

Miss Reinhart said it was the duty of the housekeeper to obey.

The housekeeper said that she was accustomed to take her orders from the master and mistress of the house, and that she did not recognize that of the governess.

“You will be compelled to recognize mine, Mrs. Eastwood, if you remain here,” she said.

“Then I shall not remain,” said the old housekeeper, trembling with indignation, which was exactly what Miss Reinhart had desired her to say.

“You had better tell Sir Roland yourself,” said my governess, in her cold, impassive manner.  “It has nothing whatever to do with me.  Sir Roland wishes me to attend to these things, and I have done so—­the result does not lie with me.”

“I have lived here, the most faithful and devoted of servants, for more than fifty years.  Why should you turn me away, or seek to turn me away?” she said.  “I have never wronged you.  You may get one more clever, but no one who will love my lady as I do—­no one who will serve her one-half so faithfully or so well, try your best, Miss Reinhart.”

“I have nothing to do with it,” she replied coldly.  “I will tell Sir Roland that you desire to leave—­there my business ends.”

“I beg your pardon, Miss Reinhart, there it does not end.  I have no wish to leave the place and family I love so well; but I say that I would rather leave than obey you.”

“I will word your message just as you wish,” she said; “there shall be no mistake.”

I was with her when that conversation was repeated to Sir Roland, and I may say that was my first real experience in the real deceit of the world.  Repeated to him, it bore quite a different aspect; it was an insolent rebellion against proper authority, and my father resented it very much.

“Unless you had told me yourself, I would not have believed it, Miss Reinhart.”

“It is quite true,” she replied, calmly, looking, in her exquisite morning dress, calm, sweet and unruffled as an angel.

I believe, honestly, that from that time she tried to make things worse.  Every day the feud increased, until the whole household seemed to be ranged one against the other.  If the housekeeper said one thing, Miss Reinhart at once said the opposite.  Then an appeal would be made to Sir Roland, who gradually became worn and worried of the very sound of it.

“You will do no good,” said Miss Reinhart to my father, “until you have pensioned that old housekeeper off.  Once done, you will have perfect peace.”

Constant dripping wears away a stone.  My father was so accustomed to hearing she must go that at last the idea became familiar to him.  I am quite sure that Miss Reinhart had made this her test; that she had said to herself—­if she had her own way in this, she should in everything else.  It was her test of what she might do and how far she might go.