"I believe Mr.Cabman and myself will prove equal to the occasion." With that the book-box came down a great bump on the pavement, and presently both were in the hall, the one on the top of the other.

Mary paid the cabman, who asked not a penny more than his fare; he departed with thanks; the facetious footman closed the door, told her to take a seat, and went away full of laughter, to report that the young person had brought a large library with her to enliven the dullness of her new situation.
Mrs.Perkin smiled crookedly, and, in a tone of pleasant reproof, desired her laughter-compressing inferior not to forget his manners.
"Please, ma'am, am I to leave the young woman sittin' up there all by herself in the cold ?" he asked, straightening himself up.

"She do look a rayther superior sort of young person," he added, "and the 'all-stove is dead out." "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.