It was a mood to which we were not strangers, though it did not often occur.

In brief, Martha (like many another invaluable domestic) "had a temper of her own"; but to do her justice her ill feelings generally expended themselves in a rage for work, and in taking as little ease herself as she allowed to other people.

I knew what it meant when I found her cleaning the best silver when she ought to have been eating her breakfast; but my head was so full of the Colonel, that I could not help talking about him, even if the temptation to tease Martha had not been overwhelming.

No reply could I extract; only once, as she passed swiftly to the china cupboard, with the whole Crown Derby tea and coffee service on one big tray (the Colonel had praised her coffee), I heard her mutter--"Soldiers is very upsetting." Certainly, considering what she did in the way of scolding, scouring, blackleading, polishing and sand-papering that week, it was not Martha's fault if we did not "get straight again," furniture and feelings.

I've heard her say that Calais sand would "fetch anything off," and I think it had fetched the Colonel off her heart by the time that the cleaning was done.
It had no such effect on mine.