Her reference said she was all these things, and I
hope she will prove so. She is older than I like servants to be, that
is, when they first come to us. A young girl is teachable, but when a
servant has once got into certain ways there is never any altering
them. However, if she knows her work it does not matter; and there's
one comfort, at her age she is less likely to be coming to us one day
or other soon and saying that she wants to leave us to get married."
The new servant, Anna, as she was called in the house soon settled
down to her duty. Miss Penfold allowed that she knew her work and did
it carefully. The servants did not quite understand the newcomer. She
was pleasant and friendly, but somehow "she was not," as one of them
said, "of their sort." This they put down partly to the fact that she
had been in service in London, and was not accustomed to country ways.
However, she was evidently obliging and quiet, and smoothed away any
slight feeling of hostility with which the under housemaid was at
first disposed to feel against her for coming in as a stranger over
her head, by saying that as she had no acquaintances in the village
she had no desire to go out, and that whenever her turn came to do so
the other might take her place. As Jane was keeping company with the
blacksmith's son, this concession greatly pleased her; and although at
first she had been disappointed that she had not on Martha's leaving
succeeded to her place, the fact that she was but twenty-one, while
the newcomer was a good many years her senior, went far to reconcile
her to being passed over.
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