Lady Bell was too thankful to turn from the prospect to await an approaching footstep, and to find that it belonged to a respectable-looking middle-aged woman, Lady Bell thought a superior upper servant, possibly the wife of Sneyd the butler, undoubtedly the housekeeper in her own person, as she carried a bunch of keys. The new-comer’s well-preserved quilted gown was protected from soil and stain by an ample apron and cuffs. Her head in its morning cap was farther fenced from the keenness of the air, and from draughts by a hood hanging round her shoulders. “Good morning to you, Lady Bell; you arrived after supper, I hear, and you have not let the grass grow on your steps this morning. But your bread and milk is not ready yet; you must wait till your betters be served. I have Mrs. Die’s chocolate to send up.” Lady Bell was offended by this speech. It was not exactly unfriendly, but it was brusque, with more than a suspicion of carping in the tone, and it was spoken with much of the coolness and freedom of an equal. Lady Bell was not naturally proud and passionate. Mr. Sneyd had misread the girl’s heart, ready to burst at her cold reception. She had been docile and affectionate to Lady Lucie—a strict disciplinarian, like most old ladies of her régime. Lady Bell had no more than the generous spirit which every true and uncrushed young nature asserts. But she had been brought up rigidly in this as in some other articles of faith, that it was her duty as a young lady of quality in the state of life to which she was called, both for her own sake and that of her neighbours, to keep servants in their proper place, and, while behaving to them with consideration, and if possible with affability, to be quick to check in them all encroachment and usurpation. When young ladies of fourteen adhere to precedents, they are not apt to make exceptions to the rule, and it is a very wonderful young lady who does not blunder even in carrying out instructions. Lady Bell, if she had been shrewd beyond her years and knowledge of the world, might have suspected that there was something anomalous in the presence of so superior an upper servant in a house like Squire Godwin’s. Lady Bell might even have been observant enough to detect that Mrs. Kitty’s accent on the whole was that of an educated woman habitually in better society than even an upper servant could then boast. But Lady Bell did not pause to make these deductions. “I shall want my bread and milk in future as soon as I come down; be so good as to see to it,” she commanded with great dignity. Mrs. Kitty stopped in preparing to heat a cup of chocolate in a chafing dish, and gave a sharp glance at Lady Bell, as much as to say, “You have soon begun; you mean to take the upper hand of me, Lady Bell, but you must have my consent first. I should just think I have more to do here than you.”