Illidge was a short, rather thick-set woman, with silver hair, bushy eyebrows, bright eyes, and a most determined expression. She wore the dress which was in vogue in the last generation: a short plain, scanty gown of fawn-coloured silk, low in the neck and short in the sleeves, a white muslin fichu, and apron and black mittens. There is a picture at Drumlanrig Castle of the Duchess of Queensberry in exactly the same costume, which I saw years afterwards when on a visit to the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch. Illidge had very aristocratic notions, and nothing ruffled her dignity more than when we—my brother or myself—marched into the kitchen and called to Sarah, the sole indoor domestic of the little household, asking her for what we wanted, instead of ringing the bell in the parlour, although the parlour and kitchen were next door to each other. “Just as you please, my dear,” said Illidge, looking extremely angry, “but I’ve always been accustomed to gentlepeople ringing the bell, and not coming into the kitchen at all hours, and making so free with the under-servants!” She had an inveterate hatred for the occupants of Midgham House. She was quite aware that her master was always glad when the house was let and warmed and kept in repair by being lived in, but if the angel Gabriel had come down from heaven to become the tenant of Midgham House, Illidge would have hated and despised him. On one occasion I composed a grandiloquent poem, having for its theme the courtship and marriage of Anna Maria Mordaunt and Stephen Poyntz, which I wrote out in my best hand, and presented to Illidge, who agreed with me in considering it a very fine epic. [Sidenote: VISIT TO ILLIDGE] My mother, who loved her early home dearly, did not share Illidge’s views respecting the tenants, or visit with her wrath those who liked the place well enough to hire it. So one day, in spite of frowns and angry looks from our hostess, she called on me to go with her to pay our respects to the tenants in question. “Will you lend me the poem,” I asked in a very conciliatory voice, “to take with me to the house? I think Mrs —— would very much like to see it.” “That she never shall,” said Illidge, in a tone of such defiant exasperation that I was indeed very sorry I had spoken. Before I go any further, I cannot refrain from telling a story I heard from Illidge’s own lips—indeed I published it in “Notes and Queries,” and more than once imparted it to literary friends. Very little credence has been awarded to this anecdote, but for my own part, I cannot doubt the authority whence it was derived.