“Of course this morning and before engaging, you were a lady,” said the cook, hustling the girl into the hall, “but now being the housemaid, Miss Loach won’t be pleased at your touching the front bell.”

“I did not see any other entrance,” protested Susan.

“Ah,” said the cook, leading the way down a few steps into the thatched cottage, which, it appeared was the servants’ quarters, “you looked down the area as is natural-like.  But there ain’t none, it being a conservitery!”

“Why does Miss Loach live in the basement?” asked Susan, on being shown into a comfortable room which answered the purpose of a servants’ hall.

The cook resented this question.  “Ah!” said she with a snort, “and why does a miller wear a white ’at, Miss Grant, that being your name I take it.  Don’t you ask no questions but if you must know, Miss Loach have weak eyes and don’t like glare.  She lives like a rabbit in a burrow, and though the rooms on the ground floor are sich as the King might in’abit, she don’t come up often save to eat.  She lives in the basement room where you saw her, Miss Grant, and she sleeps in the room orf.  When she eats, the dining-room above is at her service.  An’ I don’t see why she shouldn’t,” snorted the cook.

“I don’t mean any—­”

“No offence being given none is taken,” interrupted cook, who seemed fond of hearing her own wheezy voice.  “Emily Pill’s my name, and I ain’t ashamed of it, me having been cook to Miss Loach for years an’ years and years.  But if you had wished to behave like a servant, as you are,” added she with emphasis, “why didn’t you run round by the veranda and so get to the back where the kitchen is.  But you’re one of the new class of servants, Miss Grant, ’aughty and upsetting.”

“I know my place,” said Susan, taking off her hat.

“And I know mine,” said Emily Pill, “me being cook and consequently the mistress of this servants’ ‘all.  An’ I’m an old-fashioned servant myself, plain in my ’abits and dress.”  This with a disparaging look at the rather smart costume of the newly-arrived housemaid.  “I don’t ’old with cockes feathers and fal-de-dals on ’umble folk myself, not but what I could afford ’em if I liked, being of saving ’abits and a receiver of good wages.  But I’m a friendly pusson and not ‘ard on a good-lookin’ gal, not that you are what I call ’andsome.”

Susan seated beside the table, looked weary and forlorn, and the good-natured heart of the cook was touched, especially when Susan requested her to refrain from the stiff name of Miss Grant.

“You an’ me will be good friends, I’ve no doubt,” said Emily, “an’ you can call me Mrs. Pill, that being the name of my late ’usband, who died of gin in excess.  The other servants is housemaid and page, though to be sure he’s more of a man-of-all-work, being forty if he’s a day, and likewise coachman, when he drives out Miss Loach in her donkey carriage.