The next morning, being post-day, I sent off the gossoon early to
the post-office, to see was there any letter likely to set matters to
rights, and he brought back one with the proper post-mark upon it, sure
enough, and I had no time to examine, or make any conjecture more about
it, for into the servants’ hall pops Mrs. Jane with a blue bandbox in
her hand, quite entirely mad. “Dear ma’am, and what’s the matter?” says
I. “Matter enough,” says she; “don’t you see my bandbox is wet through,
and my best bonnet here spoiled, besides my lady’s, and all by the rain
coming in through that gallery window, that you might have got mended,
if you’d had any sense, Thady, all the time we were in town in the
winter?” “Sure, I could not get the glazier, ma’am,” says I. “You might
have stopped it up any how,” says she. “So I did, ma’am, to the best
of my ability; one of the panes with the old pillow-case, and the other
with a piece of the old stage green curtain; sure I was as careful as
possible all the time you were away, and not a drop of rain came in at
that window of all the windows in the house, all winter, ma’am, when
under my care; and now the family’s come home, and it’s summer time,
I never thought no more about it, to be sure; but dear, it’s a pity to
think of your bonnet, ma’am; but here’s what will please you, ma’am, a
letter from Mount Juliet’s Town for my lady.” With that she snatches it
from me without a word more, and runs up the back stairs to my mistress;
I follows with a slate to make up the window. This window was in the
long passage, or gallery, as my lady gave out orders to have it called,
in the gallery leading to my master’s bedchamber and hers. And when I
went up with the slate, the door having no lock, and the bolt spoilt,
was a-jar after Mrs. Jane, and as I was busy with the window, I heard
all that was saying within.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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