People say calamities are apt to hunt in couples; mine came just then in a regular pack. I was trying to be quiet for a while after dinner, and, sitting in a cozy chair by the dining-room fire, had just thrown a handkerchief across my forehead, the better to think over my troubles undisturbed by the lights in the room, when a knock sounded on the door, and my housekeeper presented herself with: "If you please, sir, could I speak to you?" Her voice sounded rather odd, and she had a nervous way with her hands so altogether unlike herself that I knew at once some fresh catastrophe had happened, and she was come to "break it" to me. I had told her to shut the door behind her, which she did; and then, as she stood trembling and hesitating just inside the room, I added, to reassure her: "Well, Mrs. Parker, what is it? I am afraid the cows must be ill, or one of the maids has given you trouble, and you want me to give her warning." "If you please, sir," replied Parker, as though that really was just what she wanted. "But which is it?" I asked, "the cows or the housemaids?" "Please sir," began Mrs. Parker again; then she paused for a full minute, and finally burst out quite suddenly, "It's me, sir, please." "You, Parker? I don't understand," which was certainly not surprising, considering the want of clearness in her remarks. However, now she had begun to speak, she seemed to feel more equal to the occasion, and presently went on: "Please, sir, it's me, sir; you said 'to give warning,' you know, sir." "Oh, indeed!" returned I, equally surprised and annoyed at this piece of self-assertion on the part of my old servant. "So you think, Mrs. Parker, that it is your place rather than mine to give warning to my domestics? I cannot say that I agree with you. I give you leave to choose and select the maids for yourself, and when they disobey you and give trouble I am willing to part with them on your advice; but servants shall not enter upon or quit my service unless I engage them or dismiss them myself. You have lived with me a great many years, Parker; but I intend to be master in my own house, and there must be a limit to your powers." I had worked myself up into quite an angry mood by this time; as to Parker, she incontinently fell a-sobbing in the very middle of my speech. She drew a little nearer when I paused, and, "Oh, Mr. Adolphus," says she, "my dear, dear master, 'tisn't nothing like as what you're saying. I wouldn't never go to ask for more power nor is my due here, and faithfully I've tried to do my duty to you these thirty years and more, but--but--but--there, sir, 'tis Sir Arthur Prynne's coachman, sir--him that has the south lodge and lost his wife a year agone last Martinmas; and, if you please, sir, I'd be glad and sorry, too, indeed, sir, to leave you this day month." The murder was out now, but what a preposterous notion! "My good woman, have you taken leave of your senses!" I asked. "Please, sir----"