The task of learning the house, grounds and personnel did not take long. The servants were an aged cook, whom he never saw; a gardener; Forbes the footman; and the housekeeper, Mrs. Wetherby, a silent faded woman of over sixty, whose recreation outside her duties was the game of patience. A sad and oppressive creature, she, whose life had been a tragedy. The details were not given, though Lionel gathered that it had been a very ordinary tragedy, but enough to wither her life and make her shun her kind. Both the men servants were dumb--an odd circumstance, but Lionel was getting used to oddity. He expressed surprise one day, hoping to draw out his hostess. She was frank about the matter: "They are dumb, poor creatures, but their affliction is my gain. Most servants gossip or argue. Mine do neither, and that is why I was at some pains to engage them. It works very well, though a stranger is naturally surprised at first." The more he saw of her, the more he admired. The primness of her attitude, when he began to know her better, struck him as being anything but ineradicable; she was in some things exceedingly human. They were talking one afternoon of Christian Science, and Lionel asked her if she really believed there was no such thing as pain. "Of course," she said promptly. "Pain is merely ignorance." "Then you must admit," he said, "that there can be no pleasure." She was puzzled. "How so?" "Everything must have its foil. Good requires evil as its negative, or there is--nothing. So to feel pleasure one must postulate pain. Otherwise you are incapable of pleasure." "Oh, but I'm _not_!" she said impulsively, and laughed. "Then where are your science and your logic?" "You mean I am a woman and illogical." She parried, evading the dilemma. "When you understand our true position you will realize how fallacious are your arguments. Now, what do you think of _Pendennis_?"