’It’s his cunning strategy, poor creature, so that he may be thought to have delivered us at the head of the town, for us to make a purchase or two, if we go to the inn on foot,’ said Diana.  ’We ’ll let the manoeuvre succeed.’

Redworth declared that she had a head for everything, and she was flattered to hear him.

So passing from the southern into the western road, they saw the town-lights beneath an amber sky burning out sombrely over the woods of Copsley, and entered the town, the postillion following.

CHAPTER XII

BETWEEN EMMA AND DIANA

Diana was in the arms of her friend at a late hour of the evening, and Danvers breathed the amiable atmosphere of footmen once more, professing herself perished.  This maid of the world, who could endure hardships and loss of society for the mistress to whom she was attached, no sooner saw herself surrounded by the comforts befitting her station, than she indulged in the luxury of a wailful dejectedness, the better to appreciate them.  She was unaffectedly astonished to find her outcries against the cold and the journeyings to and fro interpreted as a serving-woman’s muffled comments on her mistress’s behaviour.  Lady Dunstane’s maid Bartlett, and Mrs. Bridges the housekeeper, and Foster the butler, contrived to let her know that they could speak an if they would; and they expressed their pity of her to assist her to begin the speaking.  She bowed in acceptance of Fosters offer of a glass of wine after supper, but treated him and the other two immediately as though they had been interrogating bigwigs.

‘They wormed nothing out of me,’ she said to her mistress at night, undressing her.  ’But what a set they are!  They’ve got such comfortable places, they’ve all their days and hours for talk of the doings of their superiors.  They read the vilest of those town papers, and they put their two and two together of what is happening in and about.  And not one of the footmen thinks of staying, because it ’s so dull; and they and the maids object—­did one ever hear?—­to the three uppers retiring, when they ‘ve done dining, to the private room to dessert.’

‘That is the custom?’ observed her mistress.

’Foster carries the decanter, ma’am, and Mrs. Bridges the biscuits, and Bartlett the plate of fruit, and they march out in order.’

‘The man at the head of the procession, probably.’

’Oh yes.  And the others, though they have everything except the wine and dessert, don’t like it.  When I was here last they were new, and hadn’t a word against it.  Now they say it’s invidious!  Lady Dunstane will be left without an under-servant at Copsley soon.  I was asked about your boxes, ma’am, and the moment I said they were at Dover, that instant all three peeped.  They let out a mouse to me.  They do love to talk!’

Her mistress could have added, ‘And you too, my good Danvers!’ trustworthy though she knew the creature to be in the main.