And Sophie shot a quick glance at him. “Why, of course you are!” she cried. “You stupid boy!” Samuel went to the cracked mirror which hung upon the wall and looked at himself with new and wandering interest. “Don't you see how fine and strong you are?” said Sophie. “And what a bright color you've got?” “I never thought of it,” said he, and recollected the green and purple necktie. “And to think that you've talked with her!” exclaimed Sophie, turning back to the pictures; and she added in a sudden burst of generosity, “I tell you what I'll do, Samuel--I'll give you these, and you can put them in your room!” “You mustn't do that!” he protested. But the girl insisted. “No, no! I know them by heart, so it won't make any difference. And they'll mean so much more to you, because you've really met her!” CHAPTER X Samuel presented himself the next morning and was turned over to the head gardener and duly installed as an assistant. “Let me know how you're getting along,” was young Lockman's last word to him. “And if there's anything else I can do for you come and tell me.” “Thank you very much, sir,” said the boy gratefully; but without realizing how these magic words, pronounced in the gardener's hearing, would make him a privileged character about the place--an object of mingled deference and envy to the other servants. It was a little world all in itself, the “Fairview” menage. Without counting the stable hands, and the employees of the different farms, it took no less than twenty-three people to minister to the personal wants of Bertie Lockman. And they were divided into ranks and classes, with a rigid code of etiquette, upon which they insisted with vehemence. A housekeeper's assistant looked with infinite scorn upon a kitchen maid, and there had to be no less than four dining rooms for the various classes of servants who would not eat at the same table. All this was very puzzling to the stranger; but after a while he came to see how the system had grown up. It was just like a court; and the privileged beings who waited upon the sovereign necessarily were esteemed according to the importance of the service they performed for him and the access which they attained to his person. A good many of these servants were foreigners, and Samuel was pained to discover that they were for the most part without any ennobling conception of their calling. They were much given to gluttony and drinking; and there was an unthinkable amount of scandal and backbiting and jealousy. But it was only by degrees that he realized this, for he had one great motive in common with them--they were all possessed with a sense of the greatness of the Lockmans, and none of them wanted anything better than to talk for hours about the family and its wealth and power, and the habits and tastes of its members and their friends.