Then there was the loud banging of a door, and I hastily finished, and went down cautiously, found the office door at the end of the dim passage, and was just going in when the sharp voice of the servant arrested me. "Here, you--what's your name?" she said harshly. "Antony, ma'am." "Ho! Then, Mister Antony, missus says you're to make yourself useful. They've pretty well worked the flesh off my bones since I've been here, so you must just help to put a little on." I looked at her in amazement, and she certainly was not at all prepossessing, being a tall raw-boned woman of some three or four and twenty, in a hastily-put-on cotton dress, her hair rough and untidy, and displaying a general aspect of having spent as little time as possible upon her toilet. "Now, then, don't stand staring like that!" she said. "Come along here, and fill this scuttle." She led the way into the kitchen and pointed to a large coalscuttle, which I had to take and fill for her, after which she seemed to hesitate as to whether she should place the broom she held in my hands; but, probably under the impression that it would save her no trouble, she altered her mind, and went and fetched a large pair of dirty Wellington boots, which she threw down upon the floor. "There, go into that shed and clean them and your own too, and mind you do 'em well," she cried. "He's a reg'lar wunner about his boots." My experience in boot-cleaning consisted in having seen the groom at home occasionally polish a pair, so I was no adept: but hastily setting to, I worked hard at the task, and succeeded indifferently well with the big Wellingtons before bestowing the same pains upon my own shoes. I need hardly say that I was not very quick over my task, and so it happened that when I returned to the kitchen the fire was brightly burning, the kettle boiling, and my new friend, or enemy, seated at her breakfast. "There, you can put 'em down," she said, with her mouth full of bread and butter. "And now you'd best go and wait in the orfice till he comes. You're too much of a gent, I s'pose, to have meals with me?" "I'm sure I don't know," I said, rather piteously. "Don't you? Well, then, I do. You're to have your victuals in the orfice, and I s'pose they'll send some out to you when they're done, seeing as you're took here out o' charity." I felt a red spot burn in each cheek at these words, but I said nothing, only went sadly to the office, which looked terribly dim and gloomy in the morning light. The dust lay thick upon bill and parchment, and the drab books with their red patches upon their backs I could see by this light were old, discoloured, and worn.