I sent a full report of the evening to my father, who was delighted with it, although, of course, much was lost in the reporting of the mere words, not to mention the absence of her sweet face and shining eyes, of her quiet, earnest, musical voice. My father kept the letter, and that is how I am able to give the present report. CHAPTER XXX. ABOUT SERVANTS. I went to call on Lady Bernard the next day: for there was one subject on which I could better talk with her than with Marion; and that subject was Marion herself. In the course of our conversation, I said that I had had more than usual need of such a lesson as she gave us the night before,--I had been, and indeed still was, so vexed with my nurse. "What is the matter?" asked Lady Bernard. "She has given me warning," I answered. "She has been with you some time--has she not?" "Ever since we were married." "What reason does she give?" "Oh! she wants _to better herself_, of course," I replied,--in such a tone, that Lady Bernard rejoined,-- "And why should she not better herself?" "But she has such a false notion of bettering herself. I am confident what she wants will do any thing but better her, if she gets it." "What is her notion, then? Are you sure you have got at the real one?" "I believe I have _now_. When I asked her first, she said she was very comfortable, and condescended to inform me that she had nothing against either me or her master, but thought it was time she was having more wages; for a friend of hers, who had left home a year after herself, was having two more pounds than she had." "It is very natural, and certainly not wrong, that she should wish for more wages." "I told her she need not have taken such a round-about way of asking for an advance, and said I would raise her wages with pleasure. But, instead of receiving the announcement with any sign of satisfaction, she seemed put out by it; and, after some considerable amount of incoherence, blurted out that the place was dull, and she wanted a change. At length, however, I got at her real reason, which was simply ambition: she wanted to rise in the world,--to get a place where men-servants were kept,--a more fashionable place, in fact." "A very mistaken ambition certainly," said Lady Bernard, "but one which would be counted natural enough in any other line of life. Had she given you ground for imagining higher aims in her?" "She had been so long with us, that I thought she must have some regard for us." "She has probably a good deal more than she is aware of. But change is as needful to some minds, for their education, as an even tenor of life is to others. Probably she has got all the good she is capable of receiving from you, and there may be some one ready to take her place for whom you will be able to do more. However inconvenient it may be for you to change, the more young people pass through your house the better." "If it were really for her good, I hope I shouldn't mind."