‘But it takes so long, and I have much to see to in this great house,’ Dolly objected, and her husband replied: 

’Get another girl, then; three of them if you like.  What matter how many girls we have so long as Arthur pays for them, and he is bound to do that.  He said so in his letter.  You are altogether too economical.  I’ve told you so a hundred times, and now there is no need of saving.  I want to see you a lady of silks and satins like Mrs. Atherton.  Pump that girl.  I tell you, and find out what ladies do!’

This was Frank’s advice to his wife, and as far as in her lay she acted upon it, and whatever Susan told her was done by Mrs. Atherton at Brier Hill, she tried to do at Tracy Park:  all except staying out of the kitchen.  That, from her nature, she could not and would not do.  Consequently she was constantly changing cooks, and frequently took the helm herself, to the great disgust of her husband, who managed at last to imbue her with his own ideas of things.

In course of time most of the neighbors who had any claim to society called at the park, and among them Mrs. Crawford.  But Mrs. Tracy had then reached a point from which she looked down upon one who had been housekeeper where she was now mistress, and whose daughter’s good name was under a cloud, as there were some who did not believe that Harold Hastings had ever made her his wife.  When told that Mrs. Crawford had asked for her Mrs. Tracy sent word that she was engaged, and that if Mrs. Crawford pleased she would give her errand to the girl.

‘I have no errand.  I came to call,’ was Mrs. Crawford’s reply, and she never crossed the threshold of her old home again until the March winds were blowing and there was a little boy in the nursery at the park.

At the last moment the expected nurse had fallen sick, and in his perplexity Mr. Tracy went to the cottage in the lane and begged of Mrs. Crawford to come and care for his wife.  Mrs. Crawford was very proud, but she was poor, too, and as the price per week which Frank offered her was four times as much as she could earn by sewing, she consented at last and went as nurse to the sick-room, and the baby, Tom, on whose little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter who was coming home in June, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear was hanging.

Dolly Tracy’s growth after it fairly commenced, was very rapid, and when Mrs. Crawford went to her as nurse she had three servants in her employ, besides the coachman, and was imitating Mrs. Atherton to the best of her ability; and when, early in the summer, she received the wedding cards of Edith Hastings, the young lady from Collingwood, who had married a Mr. St. Claire instead of her guardian, she felt that her position was assured, and from that time her progress was onward and upward until the October morning, ten years later, when our story proper opens, and we see her standing upon the piazza of her handsome house, with every sign of wealth and luxury about her person, from the silken robe to the jewels upon her soft, white hands, which once had washed her own dishes, and canned berries in her own kitchen, where she had received Grace Atherton, with her sleeves above her elbows.