“Very good, ma’am. In the woods, I suppose?” Clara used barely to answer when I asked for tea on the lawn, and she always brought it all on one tray, with the cakes piled on the top of the bread and butter and scones; moreover, she staggered and panted to impress me with its weight, and held up her dress and suffered for the rest of the week from sore throat, “owing to wetting me feet on the grass.” The woods were at least a quarter of an hour’s walk from the house and across a ditch. “Certainly, in the woods,” I said, “and if by any chance I should be alone for tea after all, you can come round a longer way. That will give you almost as much trouble.” I wondered at first how I should explain my way of living to Perrin, and whether he would make me give up much that I held dear. Would he allow many of what Clara called the “goings on” of my house? But, to my surprise, he did not mind at all; in fact, I understood that he preferred many of the people whom Mrs. Van Dieman so much disliked to Mrs. Van Dieman herself. I could see that he thought most of the stars of the neighbourhood a poor lot. “His late lordship never thought much of them he let his place to each year,” he told me. I should have liked to hear about these objectionable tenants, but I saw that Perrin’s gems must be gathered when and where they fell; he gave nothing of value for the asking. However, with patience and care, I learned by and by some of the reasons why the usurpers had failed to please. He told me once, in a fit of irritation, that a young commercial gentleman from Sheffield, who took his late lordship’s place one year, seemed to have very little idea of how things should be. He seemed, for instance, to think that the place belonged to him. This seemed to me rather hard when I remembered how little James and I heeded the ownership of the frowsy creature to whom we paid rent for our delightful house in Palmerston Road. If it had not been for James’s uncle, I should not have dared to put forward this view. As it was, I said timidly: “But, after all, I suppose they were owners for the time being, Perrin.” He was not offended, on the contrary he gave the idea his indulgent consideration, but it would not do. “We hardly regard the town builders, ma’am, as on a par with the families as have owned the property for generations.” I probed delicately for more horrible details. “He spoke of the Master of the Hounds, ma’am, as the Captain of the Dogs.”