there brought his mind to bear on all the places where an addle-headed female was most likely to have left such things, and then he looked until he found them. He helped me a great deal in the training of young George, the footman. I told George one day that he must not gather his coat-tails round him and leap from the box as if it were a burning building. “Thank you, ma’am,” he replied shyly, “Mr. Perrin has already mentioned it. I was not going to do it after to-day.” But even then it was not quite right, and I had to appeal for help to Perrin. “George’s descent from the box is not quite right yet, Perrin, and I don’t know how to explain. Only, I am not sure whether he reminds me most of a chimpanzee or a sailor.” “Quite so, ma’am. I will see that he practises from the shelves of the pantry cupboard,” said Perrin; and in a week it was impossible to detect how George reached the ground. Once, Perrin was ill, and we all moped like sick canaries. George lost his head and forgot the coffee spoons, the silver and glass lost their sparkle and sat about all anyhow on the table. But behind the scenes the gloom was lightened, although the meals were irregular and bad owing to Ruth preparing soup and jelly for Perrin which she carried to him herself. The housemaids stole into the garden for flowers for the invalid’s room, and, one day, delighted cackles announced the fact that Mr. Perrin felt well enough to shave himself, and that Ruth and Lizzie held the glass while Mr. George prepared the soap. I sent him books and papers of a masculine kind, such as I thought he looked as if he would read. He sent his duty and found them most enjoyable, but I believe now that in the kingdom downstairs where Perrin reigns the habits of the Court are less Victorian than I supposed, and the sceptre is garlanded with flowers. _CHAPTER XVIII_: THE DRESSMAKER I can never think of Miss McGregor without adding the adjective “bitty” to her name: Bitty Miss McGregor or Miss Bitty McGregor. She sat always in such a snowstorm of bits, that by the end of the day I felt it must be necessary to dig her out before she could leave her work. Praise of Miss McGregor (which was given freely, for we all love her) was qualified by comments on her “bittiness,” but even that was not so bad as the pins. The mouthfuls of them which she threw out all over the floor! Nurse reckoned, after reading an article in the _Strand Magazine_, that if all the pins that Miss McGregor disgorged during the day were collected and fastened together, they would form a chain as long as the cable between America and England. She never ate anything but pieces of cheese, with some cold strong tea, so I conclude that if claret and tannin make ink, as I once read they do, cheese and tannin, mixed, make pins, that is if they are eaten by a dressmaker; just as a cow makes different things out of grass to what Nebuchadnezzar did. I certainly do not remember buying pins.