If you know anything of the fashionable world, you have heard tell of the three beautiful Miss Herncastles.  Miss Adelaide; Miss Caroline; and Miss Julia—­this last being the youngest and the best of the three sisters, in my opinion; and I had opportunities of judging, as you shall presently see.  I went into the service of the old lord, their father (thank God, we have got nothing to do with him, in this business of the Diamond; he had the longest tongue and the shortest temper of any man, high or low, I ever met with)—­I say, I went into the service of the old lord, as page-boy in waiting on the three honourable young ladies, at the age of fifteen years.  There I lived till Miss Julia married the late Sir John Verinder.  An excellent man, who only wanted somebody to manage him; and, between ourselves, he found somebody to do it; and what is more, he throve on it and grew fat on it, and lived happy and died easy on it, dating from the day when my lady took him to church to be married, to the day when she relieved him of his last breath, and closed his eyes for ever.

I have omitted to state that I went with the bride to the bride’s husband’s house and lands down here.  “Sir John,” she says, “I can’t do without Gabriel Betteredge.”  “My lady,” says Sir John, “I can’t do without him, either.”  That was his way with her—­and that was how I went into his service.  It was all one to me where I went, so long as my mistress and I were together.

Seeing that my lady took an interest in the out-of-door work, and the farms, and such like, I took an interest in them too—­with all the more reason that I was a small farmer’s seventh son myself.  My lady got me put under the bailiff, and I did my best, and gave satisfaction, and got promotion accordingly.  Some years later, on the Monday as it might be, my lady says, “Sir John, your bailiff is a stupid old man.  Pension him liberally, and let Gabriel Betteredge have his place.”  On the Tuesday as it might be, Sir John says, “My lady, the bailiff is pensioned liberally; and Gabriel Betteredge has got his place.”  You hear more than enough of married people living together miserably.  Here is an example to the contrary.  Let it be a warning to some of you, and an encouragement to others.  In the meantime, I will go on with my story.

Well, there I was in clover, you will say.  Placed in a position of trust and honour, with a little cottage of my own to live in, with my rounds on the estate to occupy me in the morning, and my accounts in the afternoon, and my pipe and my Robinson Crusoe in the evening—­what more could I possibly want to make me happy?  Remember what Adam wanted when he was alone in the Garden of Eden; and if you don’t blame it in Adam, don’t blame it in me.