"I’ll not say but what it’s quite a good idea," Mrs. Dew admitted, "though you can’t go jogglin’ the master’s elbow or any impudence of that sort. Still, you might wait on him, and if he gets reading, just go quiet and say ’potatoes, sir,’ or ’peas, sir,’ and it’ll bring ’im back. It goes to my very heart when he forgets and leaves a homelette till it’s all flat and tough, an’ it’d come easier like from you—you can stop in the room at lunch and dinner, and stand be’ind him at the sideboard. And mind you don’t get woolgathering too, as is but likely." "Can I have a cap and apron, like Mrs. Methuen’s parlour-maid?" Jane Anne asked eagerly, desirous to dress to the part. "Certainly not; you’d look ridiklus. I don’t want any tweeny maids in this house—you go in neat and tidy in one of the nice dresses as Mrs. Methuen got made, and behave quiet and respectful, an’ if there’s company—why I’ll wait myself, though I don’t care about it much, it not bein’ what I’ve bin used to." "Why couldn’t I wait if there was company? I’d be very quick and quiet, and I’d love to hear the gentry talk." "We’ll see first how you waits without," said Mrs. Dew, ever dubious as to Jane-Anne’s practical capacities. So it came about that she waited on Mr. Wycherly that very day at lunch, and when she handed him the vegetables he murmured something about "tender little thumbs" which puzzled her extremely. She was very deft and quiet, because she wanted to wait well, and whatever Jane-Anne wanted to do, that she did excellently. She had watched Mrs. Methuen’s parlour-maid, and she modelled herself on that very superior young person. So quiet was she, that at first, Mr. Wycherly would sometimes forget she was there, and pick up the brown calf-bound book with the queer scratchy print, that Jane-Anne already loved because she knew it was Greek, and fall a-reading only to be instantly recalled by a vegetable dish presented at his elbow and a prim low voice (even her voice was modelled on Mrs. Methuen’s parlour-maid) remarking, "Cabbage, sir," or something of the sort. But although Jane-Anne completely forgot herself in the ardour of her impersonation, Mr. Wycherly after the very first did not forget Jane-Anne. "Couldn’t you stand where I can see you?" he suggested after about a week of her ministrations, "or better still, sit down." "Oh, sir, I mustn’t sit down," she remonstrated in shocked tones; "parlour-maids never do that." "Don’t they?" said Mr. Wycherly. "It’s so long since I had a parlour-maid I’ve forgotten. When I was young I was generally waited upon by men, and in Scotland we never had any waiting at all; we helped each other." "Men are best," Jane-Anne replied from her place on the hearth-rug where she had obediently taken her stand. "If I grow up good-looking perhaps I may marry a first footman." "Good God!" ejaculated Mr. Wycherly in tones of the utmost consternation. Jane-Anne looked very surprised.