They had two English servants and some other American “help”; but they called the Americans by their last names, which anglified them to some extent. They had a servants’ hall, and a butler’s pantry, and a page in buttons, and they were unreasonably proud of the fact that one of their Tory ancestors had been obliged to leave New York for Halifax, in 1784, having only the alternative of a more tropical place of residence. I do not know whether they really held that the signers of the Declaration of Independence committed a grave error; but I do know that when they had occasion to speak of Queen Victoria, they always referred to her as “Her Majesty.” [Illustration] “I see by the _Mail_ to–night,” Mr. Tullingworth–Gordon would say to his wife, “that Her Majesty has presented the poor bricklayer who saved seventeen lives and lost both arms at the Chillingham–on–Frees disaster with an India shawl and a copy of the Life of the Prince Consort.” “Her Majesty is always _so_ generous!” Mrs. Tullingworth–Gordon would sigh; “and _so_ considerate of the common people!” Mr. Tullingworth–Gordon was a rich man, and he was free to indulge the fancy of his life, and to be as English as his name; and he engaged those two English servants to keep up the illusion. It is the tale of the menials that I have to tell—the tale of the loves of Samuel Bilson, butler, and Sophronia Huckins, “which ’Uckins it ever was an’ so it were allays called, and which ’Uckins is good enough for me, like it was good enough for my parents now departed, and there is ’ope for ’eaven for chapel–goers, though a Church–of–England woman I am myself.” Sophronia Huckins was lady’s maid to Mrs. Tullingworth–Gordon, housekeeper to Mr. and Mrs. Tullingworth–Gordon, and, in a way, autocrat and supreme ruler over the whole house of Tullingworth–Gordon. There were other servants, as I have said, but, in their several departments, Bilson and Sophronia were king and queen. Of course, at the first, there was some friction between these two potentates. For ten years they scratched and sparred and jostled; for ten years after that they lived in comfortable amity, relieving their feelings by establishing a reign of terror over the other servants; and then—ah, then—began the dawn of another day. Bilson was careless about the wine; Sophronia took to the wearing of gowns unbefitting a maid of forty years. It broke upon the Tullingworth–Gordon mind that something was in the wind, and that the conservative quiet of their domestic service was likely to be troubled. Meanwhile, Nature, unconscious of the proprieties of the situation, was having her own way in the little passage back of the butler’s pantry. “You say”—the housekeeper spoke with a certain sternness—“as how you have loved me for ten long years. But I say as how it would ’ave been more to your credit, Samuel Bilson, to ’ave found it out afore this, when, if I do say it myself, there was more occasion.”