"There were different orders of beings,--so ran Denner's creed,--and she belonged to another order than that to which her mistress belonged. She had a mind as sharp as a needle, and would have seen through and through the ridiculous pretensions of a born servant who did not submissively accept the rigid fate which had given her born superiors. She would have called such pretensions the wrigglings of a worm that tried to walk on its tail.... She was a hard-headed, godless little woman, but with a character to be reckoned on as you reckon on the qualities of iron." "I'm afraid of ever expecting anything good again," her mistress says to her in a moment of depression. "'That's weakness, madam. Things don't happen because they are bad or good, else all eggs would be addled or none at all, and at the most it is but six to the dozen. There's good chances and bad chances, and nobody's luck is pulled only by one string.... There's a good deal of pleasure in life for you yet.' "'Nonsense! There's no pleasure for old women.... What are your pleasures, Denner, besides being a slave to me?' "O, there's pleasure in knowing one is not a fool, like half the people one sees about. And managing one's husband is some pleasure, and doing one's business well. Why, if I've only got some orange-flowers to candy, I shouldn't like to die till I see them all right. Then there's the sunshine now and then; I like that, as the cats do. I look upon it life is like our game at whist, when Banks and his wife come to the still-room of an evening. I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what will be the end of it; and I want to see you make the best of your hand, madam, for your luck has been mine these forty years now." And, on another occasion, when her mistress exclaims, in a fit of distress, that "God was cruel when he made women," the author says:-- "The waiting-woman had none of that awe which could be turned into defiance; the sacred grove was a common thicket to her. "'It mayn't be good luck to be a woman,' she said. 'But one begins with it from a baby; one gets used to it. And I shouldn't like to be a man,--to cough so loud, and stand straddling about on a wet day, and be so wasteful with meat and drink. _They're a coarse lot, I think._'" I should think they were, beside Mrs. Denner. This glimpse of her is made up of what I have called the author's _touches_. She excels in the portrayal of homely stationary figures for which her well-stored memory furnishes her with types. Here is another touch, in which satire predominates. Harold Transome makes a speech to the electors at Treby. "Harold's only interruption came from his own party. The oratorical clerk at the Factory, acting as the tribune of the dissenting interest, and feeling bound to put questions, might have been troublesome; _but his voice being unpleasantly sharp, while Harold's was full and penetrating, the questioning was cried down_."