Moreover, I received a hint from headquarters that it would be considered part of my duty to keep the domestic machinery under my supervision, the housekeeper with the high wages notwithstanding. The management of a set of servants who had been accustomed to do pretty much as they pleased, except with respect to their master--he was as exacting and ready to take affront as his sister was lax and good-natured--was, I soon found, no easy task. Lilian was simply the pet of the house, as she had been ever since her return home; seeing nothing the servants did not choose her to see, and with no thought of evil--no suspicion that others might be less trustworthy and unselfish than herself. Warm-hearted, sympathetic, and lavish with her large allowance of pocket-money, she was ready to give wherever she was told help was needed, and was made acquainted with all the requirements of the servants and their relations. Grandmothers, mothers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles--numberless needy people were made known to her, and all found sympathy and help. The servants at Fairview had good cause for their fealty to their young mistress. I was too often obliged to look upon the reverse of the picture. Many a trait of human nature, of which it is painful to be cognisant, and still more painful to be the censor of, came under my notice, and for a time my position was a not very enviable one, the servants resenting what I suppose appeared to them as undue interference. But as time passed on, they learned to distinguish between my blame and their master's. They found that I blamed neither from pleasure nor anger, but simply because it was part of my business, which it gave me no little pain to be obliged to do. Then they could not say that they found me either proud or ashamed of my position. Little half-speeches and innuendoes, with which I was first assailed, to the effect that 'People who took wages had no right to set themselves up above other people who did the same,' were met by the frank acknowledgment that they certainly had not a right. 'I was ready to take the blame for any undue assumption of superiority they might convict me of, whilst trying to do the work I was paid to do.' So at length we came to understand each other better; difficulties became fewer, and my work was less a task. One step which I took, and which I quite believed would cause me to lose ground in the estimation of the servants, had quite a contrary effect to what I expected. I was very soon able, with dear old Mrs Tipper's ready sanction, to give Becky a step in life. An under-housemaid was required, and I contrived to win Mrs Sowler's consent for Becky to come to Fairview. As I laid no restrictions whatever upon Becky in the matter, I thought it quite possible that certain facts concerning my poverty, and consequent rather hard life, whilst at Mrs Sowler's, might become known amongst the servants at Fairview.