This pretty old-fashioned custom had always been the rule in her own home, and her husband had always had it practised during his life.

And since then--his death had occurred some twenty years ago--nothing that she knew of had happened to make it less proper or desirable.

Kind of heart and warm of soul though she was, she saw no reason for letting these excellent qualities cover any slackness or breach of observance in the social form of life to which she had been accustomed.

There was no cause, because one was kind and wise, to eat with badly cleaned silver, unless the parlour-maid whose office it was to clean it was unwell.

In such a case, if the extra work entailed by her illness would throw too much on the shoulders of the other servants, Mrs.
Assheton would willingly clean the silver herself, rather than that it should appear dull and tarnished.