“Some people might, no doubt.  But the poor man, as you call him, is probably quite indifferent as to what we think of him.”

“Don’t you think it would be well if you went in and just thanked him for sending the servant?”

“Perhaps,” replied Bertha, carelessly.

But she did not go to Mr. Jollyman’s, and Mrs. Cross soon forgot the suggestion.

Martha entered upon her duties, and discharged them with such zeal, such docility, that her mistress never tired of lauding her.  She was a young woman of rather odd appearance; slim and meagre and red-headed, with a never failing simper on her loose lips, and blue eyes that frequently watered; she had somehow an air of lurking gentility in faded youth.  Undeniable as were the good qualities she put forth on this scene of innumerable domestic failures, Bertha could not altogether like her.  Submissive to the point of slavishness, she had at times a look which did not harmonize at all with this demeanour, a something in her eyes disagreeably suggestive of mocking insolence.  Bertha particularly noticed this on the day after Martha had received her first wages.  Leave having been given her to go out in the afternoon to make some purchases, she was rather late in returning, and Bertha, meeting her as she entered, asked her to be as quick as possible in getting tea; whereupon the domestic threw up her head and regarded the speaker from under her eyelids with an extraordinary smile; then with a “Yes, miss, this minute, miss” scampered upstairs to take her things off.  All that evening her behaviour was strange.  As she waited at the supper table she seemed to be subduing laughter, and in clearing away she for the first time broke a plate; whereupon she burst into tears, and begged forgiveness so long and so wearisomely that she had at last to be ordered out of the room.

On the morrow all was well again; but Bertha could not help watching that singular countenance, and the more she observed, the less she liked it.

The more “willing” a servant the more toil did Mrs. Cross exact from her.  When occasions of rebuke or of dispute were lacking, the day would have been long and wearisome for her had she not ceaselessly plied the domestic drudge with tasks, and narrowly watched their execution.  The spectacle of this slave-driving was a constant trial to Bertha’s nerves; now and then she ventured a mild protest, but only with the result of exciting her mother’s indignation.  In her mood of growing moral discontent, Bertha began to ask herself whether acquiescence in this sordid tyranny was not a culpable weakness, and one day early in the year—­a wretched day of east-wind—­when she saw Martha perched on an outer window-sill cleaning panes, she found the courage to utter resolute disapproval.

“I don’t understand you, Bertha,” replied Mrs. Cross, the muscles of her face quivering as they did when she felt her dignity outraged.  “What do we engage a servant for?  Are the windows to get so dirty we can’t see through them?”