To my astonishment, Mrs. Blinder went white, and gave my hand a kind of squeeze.  “Don’t do that, my dear,” said she, trembling-like.  “To tell you the truth, that was Emma Saxon’s room, and my mistress has kept it closed ever since her death.”

“And who was Emma Saxon?”

“Mrs. Brympton’s former maid.”

“The one that was with her so many years?” said I, remembering what Mrs. Railton had told me.

Mrs. Blinder nodded.

“What sort of woman was she?”

“No better walked the earth,” said Mrs. Blinder.  “My mistress loved her like a sister.”

“But I mean—­what did she look like?”

Mrs. Blinder got up and gave me a kind of angry stare.  “I’m no great hand at describing,” she said; “and I believe my pastry’s rising.”  And she walked off into the kitchen and shut the door after her.

II

I HAD been near a week at Brympton before I saw my master.  Word came that he was arriving one afternoon, and a change passed over the whole household.  It was plain that nobody loved him below stairs.  Mrs. Blinder took uncommon care with the dinner that night, but she snapped at the kitchen-maid in a way quite unusual with her; and Mr. Wace, the butler, a serious, slow-spoken man, went about his duties as if he’d been getting ready for a funeral.  He was a great Bible-reader, Mr. Wace was, and had a beautiful assortment of texts at his command; but that day he used such dreadful language that I was about to leave the table, when he assured me it was all out of Isaiah; and I noticed that whenever the master came Mr. Wace took to the prophets.

About seven, Agnes called me to my mistress’s room; and there I found Mr. Brympton.  He was standing on the hearth; a big fair bull-necked man, with a red face and little bad-tempered blue eyes:  the kind of man a young simpleton might have thought handsome, and would have been like to pay dear for thinking it.

He swung about when I came in, and looked me over in a trice.  I knew what the look meant, from having experienced it once or twice in my former places.  Then he turned his back on me, and went on talking to his wife; and I knew what that meant, too.  I was not the kind of morsel he was after.  The typhoid had served me well enough in one way:  it kept that kind of gentleman at arm’s-length.

“This is my new maid, Hartley,” says Mrs. Brympton in her kind voice; and he nodded and went on with what he was saying.

In a minute or two he went off, and left my mistress to dress for dinner, and I noticed as I waited on her that she was white, and chill to the touch.

Mr. Brympton took himself off the next morning, and the whole house drew a long breath when he drove away.  As for my mistress, she put on her hat and furs (for it was a fine winter morning) and went out for a walk in the gardens, coming back quite fresh and rosy, so that for a minute, before her color faded, I could guess what a pretty young lady she must have been, and not so long ago, either.