CHAPTER VI.
THE ORDER OF THE DISHES.
WHEN Miss Notman assumed the post of housekeeper in Lady Loring's service, she was accurately described as "a competent and respectable person"; and was praised, with perfect truth, for her incorruptible devotion to the interests of her employers.

On its weaker side, her character was represented by the wearing of a youthful wig, and the erroneous conviction that she still possessed a fine figure.

The ruling idea in her narrow little mind was the idea of her own dignity.
Any offense offered in this direction oppressed her memory for days together, and found its way outward in speech to any human being whose attention she could secure.
At five o'clock, on the day which followed his introduction to Romayne, Father Benwell sat drinking his coffee in the housekeeper's room--to all appearance as much at his ease as if he had known Miss Notman from the remote days of her childhood.

A new contribution to the housekeeper's little library of devotional works lay on the table; and bore silent witness to the means by which he had made those first advances which had won him his present position.

Miss Notman's sense of dignity was doubly flattered.