The name of the maid was Eweretta Dobson, at which there was a general exclamation.

‘I wonder what is the history of the name,’ said Albinia; ’it sounds like nothing but the diminutive of ewer.  I hope she will not be the little pitcher with long ears.’

Mr. Kendal looked as much amused as he ever did, but no one else gave the least token of so much as knowing what she meant, and she felt as if she had been making a foolish attempt at wit.

‘You need not call her so,’ was all that Mrs. Meadows said.

‘I do not like calling servants by anything but their true names,’ answered Albinia; ’it does not seem to me treating them with proper respect to change their names, as if we thought them too good for them.  It is using them like slaves.

Lucy exclaimed, ’Why! grandmamma’s Betty is really named Philadelphia.’

Albinia laughed, but was disconcerted by finding that she had really given annoyance.  ‘I beg your pardon,’ she said.  ’It is only a fancy of my own.  I am afraid that I have many fancies for my friends to bear with.  You see I have so fine a name of my own, that I have a fellow-feeling for those under the same affliction; and I believe some servants like an alias rather than be teased for their finery, so I shall give Miss Eweretta her choice between that and her surname.

The old lady looked good-natured, and that matter blew over; but Miss Meadows fell into another complication of pros and cons about writing for the woman’s character, looking miserably harassed whether she should write, or Mrs. Kendal, before she had been called upon.

Albinia supposed that Mrs. Wolfe might call in the course of the week; but this Miss Meadows did not know, and she embarked in so many half speeches, and looked so mysterious and significant at her mother, that Albinia began to suspect that some dreadful truth was behind.

‘Perhaps,’ said the old lady, ’perhaps Mrs. Kendal might make it understood through you, my dear Maria, that she is ready to receive visits.’

‘I suppose they must be!’ said Albinia.

’You see, my dear, people would be most happy, but they do not know whether you have arrived.  You have not appeared at church, as I may say.’

‘Indeed,’ said Albinia, much diverted by her new discoveries in the realms of etiquette, ’I was rather in a cupboard, I must allow.  Ought we to have sailed up the aisle in state in the Grandison pattern?  Are you ready?’ and she glanced up at her husband, but he only half heard.

‘No,’ said Miss Meadows, fretfully; ’but you have not appeared as a bride.  The straw bonnet—­you see people cannot tell whether you are not incog, as yet—­’

To refrain from laughing was impossible.  ‘My tarn cap,’ she exclaimed; ’I am invisible in it!  What shall I do?  I fear I shall never be producible, for indeed it is my very best, my veritable wedding-bonnet!’

Lucy looked as if she thought it not worth while to be married for no better a bonnet than that.