Not many years ago--I don't know whether before or since that white
mark was drawn on the door--a lady occupied the confidential place of
housemaid in this "private residence," who brought a good character,
who seemed to have a cheerful temper, whom I used to hear clattering and
bumping overhead or on the stairs long before daylight--there, I say,
was poor Camilla, scouring the plain, trundling and brushing, and
clattering with her pans and brooms, and humming at her work. Well,
she had established a smuggling communication of beer over the area
frontier. This neat-handed Phyllis used to pack up the nicest baskets
of my provender, and convey them to somebody outside--I believe, on my
conscience, to some poor friend in distress. Camilla was consigned to
her doom. She was sent back to her friends in the country; and when she
was gone we heard of many of her faults. She expressed herself, when
displeased, in language that I shall not repeat. As for the beer and
meat, there was no mistake about them. But apres? Can I have the heart
to be very angry with that poor jade for helping another poorer jade out
of my larder? On your honor and conscience, when you were a boy, and
the apples looked temptingly over Farmer Quarringdon's hedge, did you
never--? When there was a grand dinner at home, and you were sliding,
with Master Bacon, up and down the stairs, and the dishes came out, did
you ever do such a thing as just to--? Well, in many and many a respect
servants are like children.
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