"
"For the present, Castle," replied Mrs. Perkin.
She judged it wise to let the young woman have a lesson at once
in subjection and inferiority.
Mrs. Perkin was a rather tall, rather thin, quite straight, and
very dark-complexioned woman. She always threw her head back on
one side and her chin out on the other when she spoke, and had
about her a great deal of the authoritative, which she mingled
with such consideration toward her subordinates as to secure
their obedience to her, while she cultivated antagonism to her
mistress. She had had a better education than most persons of her
class, but was morally not an atom their superior in consequence.
She never went into a new place but with the feeling that she was
of more importance by far than her untried mistress, and the
worthier person of the two. She entered her service, therefore,
as one whose work it was to take care of herself against a woman
whose mistress she ought to have been, had Providence but started
her with her natural rights. At the same time, she would have
been _almost_ as much offended by a hint that she was not a
Christian, as she would have been by a doubt whether she was a
lady. For, indeed, she was both, if a great opinion of herself
constituted the latter, and a great opinion of going to church
constituted the former.
She had not been taken into Hesper's confidence with regard to
Mary, had discovered that "a young person" was expected, but had
learned nothing of what her position in the house was to be.
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