"All right," said Kate lightly. "I scarce think they turn up the whites of their eyes at Bentley Hall. Have your fling, Jenny--only don't go _too_ far, look you." "I can take care of myself, thank you," returned Jenny scornfully. "Lock that striped bag for me, Kate, there's a darling; there's father calling downstairs." And Jenny ran off, to cry softly in a high treble to Kate, a minute afterwards--"Supper!" Supper was spread in the large kitchen of the farmhouse. Jenny's father was a tenant farmer, his landlord being Colonel Lane, of Bentley Hall, and it was to be maid (or, as they said then, "lady's woman") to the Colonel's sister, that Jenny was going to the Hall. Mrs Jane was much younger than her brother, being only six years older than Jenny herself. In the present day she would be called Miss Jane, but in 1651 only little girls were termed _Miss_. Jenny had always been rather a pet, both with Mrs Lane and her daughter; for she was a bright child, who learned easily, and could repeat the Creed and the Ten Commandments as glibly as possible when she was only six years old. Unhappily, lessons were apt to run out of Jenny's head as fast as they ran in, except when frequently demanded; but the Creed and the Commandments had to stay there, for every Saturday night she was called on to repeat them to her Grandmother, and every Sunday afternoon she had to say them at the catechising in church. In Jenny's head, therefore, they remained; but down to Jenny's heart they never penetrated. It was only now that Mrs Jane was setting up a maid for herself. Hitherto she had been served by her mother's woman; but now she was going on a visit to some relatives near Bristol, and it was thought proper that she should have a woman of her own. And when the question was asked where the maid should be sought, Mrs Jane had said at once--"Oh, let me have little Jenny Lavender!" Farmer Lavender was not quite so ready to let Jenny go as Mrs Jane was to ask it. Bristol seemed to him a long way off, and, being a town, most likely a wicked place. Those were days in which people made their wills before they took a journey of a hundred miles; and no wonder, when the roads were so bad that men had frequently to be hired to walk beside a gentleman's carriage, and give it a push to either side, when it showed an inclination to topple over; or oxen sometimes were fetched, to pull the coach out of a deep quagmire of mud, from which only one half of it was visible. So Farmer Lavender shook his head, and said "he didn't know, no, he didn't, whether he'd let his little maid go." But Mrs Jane was determined--and so was Jenny; and between them they conquered the farmer, though his old mother was on the prudent side. This was Friday, and Mrs Jane was to leave home on Tuesday; and on Saturday afternoon, Robert Featherstone, Colonel Lane's valet, whom Jenny thought such a gentleman, was to come for her and her luggage.