In the first place, the Countess was getting weary of Shepperton—­weary of waiting for her brother’s overtures which never came; so, one fine morning, she reflected that forgiveness was a Christian duty, that a sister should be placable, that Mr. Bridmain must feel the need of her advice, to which he had been accustomed for three years, and that very likely ‘that woman’ didn’t make the poor man happy.  In this amiable frame of mind she wrote a very affectionate appeal, and addressed it to Mr. Bridmain, through his banker.

Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper.  Nanny adored her mistress:  she had been heard to say, that she was ’ready to kiss the ground as the missis trod on’; and Walter, she considered, was her baby, of whom she was as jealous as a lover.  But she had, from the first, very slight admiration for the Countess Czerlaski.  That lady, from Nanny’s point of view, was a personage always ‘drawed out i’ fine clothes’, the chief result of whose existence was to cause additional bed-making, carrying of hot water, laying of table-cloths, and cooking of dinners.  It was a perpetually heightening ‘aggravation’ to Nanny that she and her mistress had to ‘slave’ more than ever, because there was this fine lady in the house.

‘An, she pays nothin’ for’t neither,’ observed Nanny to Mr. Jacob Tomms, a young gentleman in the tailoring line, who occasionally—­simply out of a taste for dialogue—­looked into the vicarage kitchen of an evening.  ’I know the master’s shorter o’ money than iver, an’ it meks no end o’ difference i’ th’ housekeepin’—­her bein’ here, besides bein’ obliged to have a charwoman constant.’

‘There’s fine stories i’ the village about her,’ said Mr. Tomms.  ’They say as Muster Barton’s great wi’ her, or else she’d niver stop here.’

‘Then they say a passill o’ lies, an’ you ought to be ashamed to go an’ tell ’em o’er again.  Do you think as the master, as has got a wife like the missis, ‘ud go running arter a stuck-up piece o’ goods like that Countess, as isn’t fit to black the missis’s shoes?  I’m none so fond o’ the master, but I know better on him nor that.’

‘Well, I didn’t b’lieve it,’ said Mr. Tomms, humbly.

‘B’lieve it? you’d ha’ been a ninny if yer did.  An’ she’s a nasty, stingy thing, that Countess.  She’s niver giv me a sixpence nor an old rag neither, sin’ here’s she’s been.  A-lyin’ a bed an a-comin’ down to breakfast when other folks wants their dinner!’

If such was the state of Nanny’s mind as early as the end of August, when this dialogue with Mr. Tomms occurred, you may imagine what it must have been by the beginning of November, and that at that time a very slight spark might any day cause the long-smouldering anger to flame forth in open indignation.

That spark happened to fall the very morning that Mrs. Hackit paid the visit to Mrs. Patten, recorded in the last chapter.  Nanny’s dislike of the Countess extended to the innocent dog Jet, whom she ’couldn’t a-bear to see made a fuss wi’ like a Christian.  An’ the little ouzle must be washed, too, ivery Saturday, as if there wasn’t children enoo to wash, wi’out washin’ dogs.’