"You needn't be afraid of that, Jemima," returned Mary. "If you don't answer when I ring, I shall know, as well as if you told me, that you either don't hear or can't come at the moment. I sha'n't be exacting." "Don't you be afeared to ring, miss; I'll answer your bell as often as I hear it." "Could you bring me a loaf? I have had nothing since Mrs. Perkin's dinner; and this bread and butter is rather too delicately cut," said Mary. "Laws, miss, you must be nigh clemmed!" said the girl; and, hastening away, she soon returned with a loaf, and butter, and a pot of marmalade sent by the cook, who was only too glad to open a safety-valve to her pleasure at the discomfiture of Mrs. Perkin. "When would you like your breakfast, miss?" asked Jemima, as she removed the tea-things. "Any time convenient," replied Mary. "It's much the same to me, miss, so it's not before there's bilin' water. You'll have it in bed, miss?" "No, thank you. I never do." "You'd better, miss." "I could not think of it." "It makes no more trouble--less, miss, than if I had to get it when the room-breakfast was on. I've got to get the things together anyhow; and why shouldn't you have it as well as Mrs. Perkin, or that ill-tempered cockatoo, Mrs. Folter? You're a lady, and that's more'n can be said for either of them--justly, that is." "You don't mean," said Mary, surprised out of her discretion, "that the housekeeper and the lady's-maid have breakfast in bed?" "It's every blessed mornin' as I've got to take it up to 'em, miss, upon my word of honor, with a soft-biled egg, or a box o' sardines, new-opened, or a slice o' breakfast bacon, streaky. An' I do _not_ think as it belongs proper to my place; only you see, miss, the kitchen-maid has got to do it for the cook, an' if I don't, who is there? It's not them would let the scullery-maid come near them in their beds." "Does Mrs. Perkin know that the cook and the lady's-maid have it as well as herself?" "Not she, miss; she'd soon make their coffee too 'ot! She's the only lady down stairs--she is! No more don't Mrs. Folter know as the cook has hers, only, if she did, it wouldn't make no differ, for she daren't tell. And cook, to be sure, it ain't her breakfast, only a cup o' tea an' a bit o' toast, to get her heart up first." "Well," said Mary, "I certainly shall not add another to the breakfasts in bed. But I must trouble you all the same to bring it me here. I will make my bed, and do out the room myself, if you will come and finish it off for me." "Oh, no, indeed, miss, you mustn't do that! Think what they'd say of you down stairs! They'd despise you downright!" "I shall do it, Jemima. If they were servants of the right sort, I should like to have their good opinion, and they would think all the more of me for doing my share; as it is, I should count it a disgrace to care a straw, what they thought. We must do our work, and not mind what people say."