“You are late!” was his greeting, in a low, cold voice.  “I have been expecting you.  The woman Newton found for me has been up and down with a dozen questions I cannot answer.  I must be saved from this; I will not be disturbed.  Go and see what she wants; then, if there is more food to be cooked, come to me for money.  Mark! no more bills.  I will give you what cash you want each day, so long as you do not ask too much.”

“Very well.  Your fire wants making up, uncle.”  She brought out this last word with an effort.  “I suppose I am to call you uncle?”

“Call me what you choose,” was the ungracious reply.

In the hall she found the new servant, whom she had already seen, waiting her orders.  She was a stout, good-humored woman of a certain age, with vast experience, gathered in many services, and partly tempted to her present engagement by the hope that in so small a household her labor would be light.

“Will you come up, miss, and see if your room is as you like it?” was her first address.  “I’m sure I am glad you have come!  I’ve been groping in the dark, in a manner of speaking, since I came yesterday; and Mr. Liddell, he’s not to be spoke to.  Believe me, miss, if it wasn’t that I promised your mar, and saw you was a nice young lady yourself, wild horses wouldn’t keep me in such a lonesome barrack of a place!”

“I hope you will not desert us, Mrs. Knapp,” returned Katherine, cheerfully.  “If you and I do our best, I hope the place will not be so bad.”

“Well, it didn’t ought to,” returned Mrs. Knapp.  “There’s lots of good furniture everywhere but in the kitchen, and that’s just for all the world like a marine store!”

“Is it?” exclaimed Katherine, greatly puzzled by the metaphor.  “At all events you have made my room nice and tidy.”  This conversation, commenced on the staircase, was continued in Katherine’s apartment.

“It ain’t bad, miss; there’s plenty of room for your clothes in that big wardrobe, and there’s a chest of drawers; but Lord, ’m, they smell that musty, I’ve stood them open all last night and this morning, but they ain’t much the better.  I didn’t like to ask for the key of the bookcase, but I can see through the glass the books are just coated with dust,” said Mrs. Knapp.

“We must manage all that by-and-by,” said Katherine.  “Have you anything in the house?  I suppose my uncle will want some dinner.”

“I gave him a filleted sole with white sauce, and a custard pudding, at two o’clock, and he said he wanted nothing more.  I had no end of trouble in getting half a crown out of him, and he had the change.  If the gentleman as I saw with your mar, miss, hadn’t given me five shillings, I don’t know where I should be.”

“I will ask my uncle what he would like for dinner or supper, and come to you in the kitchen afterward.”

Such was Katherine’s inauguration.