“It will make no difference with Grey Jerrold what you are,” something said to her, and comforted, with this assurance she fell asleep, in her new home.

CHAPTER XI.

MISS McPHERSON’S HOUSEMAID.

Bessie meant to be up with the sun, but she was so tired and the room so quiet, that she slept soundly until awakened by the long clock in the lower hall striking seven.

“This is a bad beginning,” she thought, as she made her hasty toilet.

She found her trunks outside her door, and selecting from them her new calico dress, which she had bought just before leaving home, she put it on, together with one of the pretty white aprons which Neil had so detested and Grey had so admired.

“I ought to have a housemaid’s cap,” she thought, is she looked at herself in the glass and tried to smooth and straighten her hair, which would curl around her forehead in spite of all she could do.

A clean collar, with cuffs at her wrists, completed her costume, and it was a very neat, attractive little housemaid which entered the room where Miss McPherson was leisurely finishing her plain breakfast of toast, and tea, and eggs.

“Oh, auntie,” Bessie began advancing to her side, “I am so sorry I overslept.  I was very tired, and the bed was so nice.  It shall not happen again.  What can I do for you?  Let me make you a fresh slice of toast.”

“No, thanks.  I am through.  You can clear the table if you like,” Miss Betsey replied, shoving back her chair and eyeing her niece curiously as she gathered up the dishes and carried them to the kitchen, where she took her own breakfast with the cook, who instructed her in her duties as well as she could.

“She is mighty queer and mighty particular, but if you get the soft side of her you are all right,” she said to Bessie, who moved about the house almost as handily as if she had lived there all her life.

Never had the china been washed more carefully or quickly, or the furniture better dusted, or the table better arranged for dinner, and had Bessie been a trained servant from the queen’s household she could not have waited upon her aunt more deftly or respectfully than she did.  But the strain upon her nerves began to tell upon her, and after her dishes were washed, and she was assured by the cook that there was nothing more for her to do until tea-time, she went to her room for a little rest, just as a carriage dashed up to the door, and the bell rang fiercely.  Scarcely, however, had Bessie reached the hall on her way to answer the ring, when her aunt, who, it seemed to her, was everywhere present, darted out from some quarter, and seizing her by the shoulder said, quickly: 

“Go back to your room.  I’ll let her in myself.”