be contented with those subordinates. He was the easiest master under whom a servant could live. But his favour had to be won through Mrs Baggett's smiles. During the last two years, however, there had been enough of discussion about Mary Lawrie to convince Mrs Baggett that, in regard to this "interloper," as Mrs Baggett had once called her, Mr Whittlestaff intended to have his own way. Such being the case, Mrs Baggett was most anxious to know whether the young lady was such as she could love.

Strangely enough, when the young lady had come, Mrs Baggett, for twelve months, could not quite make up her mind. The young lady was very different from what she had expected. Of interference in the house there was almost literally none. Mary had evidently heard much of Mrs Baggett's virtues,—and infirmities,—and seemed to understand that she also had in many things to place herself under Mrs Baggett's orders. "Lord love you, Miss Mary," she was heard to say; "as if we did not all understand that you was to be missus of everything at Croker's Hall,"—for such was the name of Mr Whittlestaff's house. But those who heard it knew that the words were spoken in supreme good humour, and judged from that, that Mrs Baggett's heart had been won. But Mrs Baggett still had her fears; and was not yet resolved but that it might be her duty to turn against Mary Lawrie with all the violence in her power. For the first month or two after the young lady's arrival, she had almost made up her mind that Mary Lawrie would never consent to become Mrs Whittlestaff. An old gentleman will seldom fall in love without some encouragement; or at any rate, will not tell his love. Mary Lawrie was as cold to him as though he had been seventy-five instead of fifty. And she was also as dutiful,—by which she showed Mrs Baggett more strongly even than by her coldness, that any idea of marriage was on her part out of the question.

This, strange to say, Mrs Baggett resented. For though she certainly felt, as would do any ordinary Mrs Baggett in her position, that a wife would be altogether detrimental to her interest in life, yet she could not endure to think that "a little stuck-up minx, taken in from charity," should run counter to any of her master's wishes. On one or two occasions she had spoken to Mr Whittlestaff respecting the young lady and had been cruelly snubbed. This certainly did not create good humour on her part, and she began to fancy herself angry in that the young lady was so ceremonious with her master. But as months ran by she felt that Mary was thawing, and that Mr Whittlestaff was becoming more affectionate. Of course there were periods in which her mind veered round. But at the end of the year Mrs Baggett certainly did wish that the young lady should marry her old master. "I can go down to Portsmouth," she said to the baker, who was a most respectable old man, and was nearer to Mrs Baggett's confidence than any one else except her master, "and weary out the rest on 'em there." When she spoke of "wearying out the rest on 'em," her friend perfectly understood that she alluded to what years she might still have to live, and to the abject misery of her latter days, which would be the consequence of her resigning her present mode of life. Mrs Baggett was supposed to have been born at Portsmouth, and, therefore, to allude to that one place which she knew in the world over and beyond the residences in which her master and her master's family had resided.

Before I go on to describe the characters of Mr Whittlestaff and Miss Lawrie, I must devote a few words to the early life of Mrs Baggett. Dorothy Tedcaster had been born in the house of Admiral Whittlestaff, the officer in command at the Portsmouth dockyard. There her father or her mother had family connections, to visit whom Dorothy, when a young woman, had returned from the then abode of her loving mistress, Mrs Whittlestaff. With Mrs Whittlestaff she had lived absolutely from the hour of her birth, and of Mrs Whittlestaff her mind was so full, that she did conceive her to be superior, if not absolutely in rank, at any rate in all the graces and favours of life, to her Majesty and all the royal family. Dorothy in an evil hour went back to Portsmouth, and there encountered that worst of military heroes, Sergeant Baggett. With many lamentations, and confessions as to her own weakness, she wrote to her mistress, acknowledging that she did intend to marry "B." Mrs Whittlestaff could do nothing to prevent it, and Dorothy did marry "B." Of the misery and ill-usage, of the dirt and poverty, which poor Dorothy Baggett endured during that year, it needs not here to tell. That something had passed between her and her old mistress when she returned to her, must, I suppose, have been necessary. But of her married life, in subsequent years, Mrs Baggett never spoke at all. Even the baker only knew dimly that there had been a Sergeant Baggett in existence. Years had passed since that bad quarter of an hour in her life, before Mrs Baggett had been made over to her present master. And he, though he probably knew something of the abominable Sergeant, never found it necessary to mention his name. For this Mrs Baggett was duly thankful, and would declare among all persons, the baker included, that "for a gentleman to be a gentleman, no gentleman was such a gentleman" as her master.

It was now five-and-twenty years since the Admiral had died, and fifteen since his widow had followed him. During the latter period Mrs Baggett had lived at Croker's Hall with Mr Whittlestaff, and within that period something had leaked out as to the Sergeant. How it had come to pass that Mr Whittlestaff's establishment had been mounted with less of the paraphernalia of wealth than that of his parents, shall be told in the next chapter; but it was the case that Mrs Baggett, in her very heart of hearts, was deeply grieved at what she considered to be the poverty of her master. "You're a stupid old fool, Mrs Baggett," her master would say, when in some private moments her regrets would be expressed. "Haven't you got enough to eat, and a bed to lie on, and an old stocking full of money somewhere? What more do you want?"

"A stocking full of money!" she would say, wiping her eyes; "there ain't no such thing. And as for eating, of course, I eats as much as I wants. I eats more than I wants, if you come to that."

"Then you're very greedy."

"But to think that you shouldn't have a man in a black coat to pour out a glass of wine for you, sir!"

"I never drink wine, Mrs Baggett."

"Well, whisky. I suppose a fellow like that wouldn't be above pouring out a glass of whisky for a gentleman;—though there's no knowing now what those fellows won't turn up their noses at. But it's a come-down in the world, Mr Whittlestaff."

"If you think I've come down in the world, you'd better keep it to yourself, and not tell me. I don't think that I've come down."

"You bear up against it finely like a man, sir; but for a poor woman like me, I do feel it." Such was Mrs Baggett and the record of her life. But this little conversation took place before the coming of Mary Lawrie.

CHAPTER II.

MR WHITTLESTAFF.
 

Mr Whittlestaff had not been a fortunate man, as fortune is generally counted in the world. He had not succeeded in what he had attempted. He had, indeed, felt but little his want of success in regard to money, but he had encountered failure in one or two other matters which had touched him nearly. In some things his life had been successful; but these were matters in which the world does not write down a man's good luck as being generally conducive to his happiness. He had never had a headache, rarely a cold, and not a touch of the gout. One little finger had become crooked, and he was recommended to drink whisky, which he did willingly,—because it was cheap. He was now fifty, and as fit, bodily and mentally, for hard work as ever he had been. And he had a thousand a-year to spend, and spent it without