But the talk about Miss Galindo’s choice and management of her servants was confined to village gossip, and had never reached my Lady Ludlow’s ears, though doubtless Mr. Horner was well acquainted with it.  What my lady knew of her amounted to this.  It was the custom in those days for the wealthy ladies of the county to set on foot a repository, as it was called, in the assize-town.  The ostensible manager of this repository was generally a decayed gentlewoman, a clergyman’s widow, or so forth.  She was, however, controlled by a committee of ladies; and paid by them in proportion to the amount of goods she sold; and these goods were the small manufactures of ladies of little or no fortune, whose names, if they chose it, were only signified by initials.

Poor water-colour drawings, indigo and Indian ink; screens, ornamented with moss and dried leaves; paintings on velvet, and such faintly ornamental works were displayed on one side of the shop.  It was always reckoned a mark of characteristic gentility in the repository, to have only common heavy-framed sash-windows, which admitted very little light, so I never was quite certain of the merit of these Works of Art as they were entitled.  But, on the other side, where the Useful Work placard was put up, there was a great variety of articles, of whose unusual excellence every one might judge.  Such fine sewing, and stitching, and button-holing!  Such bundles of soft delicate knitted stockings and socks; and, above all, in Lady Ludlow’s eyes, such hanks of the finest spun flaxen thread!

And the most delicate dainty work of all was done by Miss Galindo, as Lady Ludlow very well knew.  Yet, for all their fine sewing, it sometimes happened that Miss Galindo’s patterns were of an old-fashioned kind; and the dozen nightcaps, maybe, on the materials for which she had expended bona-fide money, and on the making-up, no little time and eye-sight, would lie for months in a yellow neglected heap; and at such times, it was said, Miss Galindo was more amusing than usual, more full of dry drollery and humour; just as at the times when an order came in to X. (the initial she had chosen) for a stock of well-paying things, she sat and stormed at her servant as she stitched away.  She herself explained her practice in this way:—­

“When everything goes wrong, one would give up breathing if one could not lighten ones heart by a joke.  But when I’ve to sit still from morning till night, I must have something to stir my blood, or I should go off into an apoplexy; so I set to, and quarrel with Sally.”

Such were Miss Galindo’s means and manner of living in her own house.  Out of doors, and in the village, she was not popular, although she would have been sorely missed had she left the place.  But she asked too many home questions (not to say impertinent) respecting the domestic economies (for even the very poor liked to spend their bit of money their own way), and would open cupboards to find out hidden extravagances, and question closely respecting the weekly amount of butter, till one day she met with what would have been a rebuff to any other person, but which she rather enjoyed than otherwise.