As for me, I went to bed. I had had all the supper I wanted. And uncle has never been the same to me since, though I'm sure I tried to act for the best. GUILTY IT was my first place and my last, and I don't think we should have got on in business as we have if it hadn't been for me being for six or seven years with one of the first families in the county. Though only a housemaid, you can't help learning something of their ways. At any rate, you learn what gentlefolks like, and what they can't abide. But the worst of being housemaid where there's a lot of servants kept is, that one or other or all of the men-servants is sure to be wanting to keep company with you. They have nothing else to do in their spare time, and I suppose it's handy having your sweetheart living in the house. It doesn't give you so much trouble with going out in the evening, if not fine. The coachman was promised to the cook, which, I believe, often takes place. Tim, the head groom, was a very nice, genteel fellow, and I daresay I might have taken up with him, if I hadn't met with my James, though never with John, who was the plague of my life. To begin with, he had a black whisker, that I couldn't bear to look at, let alone putting one's face against it, as I should have had to have done when married, no doubt. And he had a roving black eye, very yellowy in the white of it, and hair that looked all black and bear's-greasy, though he always said he never put anything on it except a little bay rum in moderation. They tell me I was a pretty girl enough in those days, though looks is less important than you might think to a housemaid, if only she dresses neat and has a small waist. And I suppose I must think that John really did love me in his scowling, black whiskery way. He was a good footman, I will say that, and had been with the master three years, and the best of characters; but whatever he might have thought, I never would have had anything to do with him, even if James and me had had seas between us broad a-rolling for ever and ever Amen. He asked me once and he asked me twice, and it was 'no' and 'no' again. And I had even gone so far as to think that perhaps I should have to give up a good place to get out of his way, when master's uncle, old Mr. Oliver, and his good lady, came to stay at the Court, and with them came James, who was own man to Mr. Oliver.