When I married, thirty years ago, I desired to lead a simpler life than is led by most people. So many women seem to me like parasites living on the combined labour of husband and servants. My friend Elizabeth Tique, with whom I often stayed, kept a cook, three maids, and an odd man, and these wretches somehow contrived to fill every inch of the small house and garden. It was almost impossible to go into any room without finding some one aggravatingly dressed in spotted cotton, rustling along with either a damp cloth or a carpet-sweeper or a tray laden with food. On one occasion, I remember, I went to my bedroom to write letters, having left one of the cotton-backs clearing away the breakfast, and the other, she of the damp cloth, in possession of the drawing-room. By some marvellous sleight of foot they both contrived to reach my room before me, and were busily engaged there when I arrived. “Don’t go away,” I said pleasantly, and gathering up my blotting-pad and papers I returned to the drawing-room to write. I was in the full swing of inspiration when the door was burst open by a third skirmisher in the hated uniform. She made her offence far worse by pretending that her visit was only one of wanton light-heartedness. “It’s all right, Miss,” she said, “I can come back by and by; it was only to do the grate.” I swallowed the word that rose to my lips--Elizabeth says it doesn’t do for the servants to know we say these things--and took my papers to the garden; but my letter was no longer witty. It was full of short disjointed sentences and tedious information. In a few minutes I was startled by a terrific rumbling on the gravel. The odd man was approaching to mow the lawn. “Sorry to disturb you, Miss; I shan’t be above ’alf an hour,” was the way he put it. There are many possible variations of the same crime. “Elizabeth,” I said as politely as I could when she came out on her way to the shops, “have you a wine-cellar?” “Yes, a beauty. Why?” “Do you mind telling me--is this the day for cleaning it out?” “What nonsense; we don’t clean it out.” “Then may I sit in it?” Elizabeth was busy with the fish, but she told me where the key was, and I went down with a candle. It was cool and quiet and cobwebby, and I got on nicely. I was just getting my second wind and had refilled my fountain pen when I heard a voice--that of my enemy with the cloth--outside the door. “This is the cellar, Mr. Brown. I think master wished the port put in the second bin from the left. I’ll just give it a wipe out if you’ll excuse me.” I tried the coach-house, but it happened to be George’s day for swilling it after he had finished the grass, and when I found a place in the greenhouse away from the drip he came and put manure on the tomatoes.