She began to realise, too, that for the first time she confronted the difficulties of modern housekeeping. Hitherto, everything had been idyllic. Of course, Pollie had made mistakes sometimes, especially at first, but she had been always willing to learn, honest as sunlight, and clean with rural cleanliness. When Lucy had heard the perpetual grumble and bewailing of the mistresses among her acquaintance, she had, in her secret heart, been inclined to think there was a great deal in the adage “Good mistresses make good servants,” which was often openly and severely enunciated by dignified old dames supported by retainers of twenty or thirty years’ standing. Also she had recognised the defects of her sister Florence’s household management, at once so exacting and so careless. She had owned to herself that if she were a servant, she would not wish to remain in the Brand establishment. Now she felt, however, that she was driven out upon slippery places, where Florence, however unsuccessful in keeping her feet, yet had some experience where she herself had none. Yet Lucy might have been wiser to have tried her experiments after her own fashion. But a woman happily married and then suddenly deprived of her husband’s counsel and decision, is only too ready to lean upon any reed which offers itself to her hand, especially when her mind is distracted by duties which seem to her of paramount importance. No suitable maiden had presented herself when Pollie’s departing day arrived. But Mrs. Brand, far from being disconcerted by this, had been thinking it an advisable course of circumstances, and ignoring all Lucy’s wishes in the contrary direction. “I should prefer to have the two girls here together for a day or two,” Lucy had pleaded; “then the newcomer would see just what was expected from her.” “Nonsense,” said Mrs. Brand with decision. “Never allow your old servant and your new one to meet. Even in my house, it is always a comfort when there is a regular clearance. The old ones put the stranger up to all your weaker points, tell them just where they can deceive you, and the demands they would advise them to make, ‘if they would begin as they would like to go on.’ Consequently you never really have even the brief advantage of ‘the new broom that sweeps well.’” “I cannot regard Pollie as a natural enemy,” Lucy answered. “I feel sure she would say the place is a good one, that we are not ill to live with, and that a girl who could not get on with us must be hard to please.” Mrs. Brand laughed gaily. “Will you ever learn wisdom, my dear?” she said. “You persist in judging Pollie by yourself. But would you have treated anybody as she has just treated you?—suddenly casting off an old tie precisely at a critical time?”