She told Hester all about it. Hester had a special knack of being told
about the servants' young men, for she knew also all about those of Eliza
Pollard's predecessors.
The housemaid was Jane Masters, who helped Eliza Pollard to make the beds.
Jane Masters did not hold with fickleness in love--in fact, she couldn't
abide it--and therefore she was steadily true to a young man called 'Erb,
who looked after the lift at the Stores, and was a particular friend of
Gregory's in consequence. No man who had charge of a lift could fail to be
admired by Gregory.
Finally--and very likely she ought to have come first--was Runcie, or Mrs.
Runciman, who had not only been the nurse of all the Avories, but of Mrs.
Avory before them, when Mrs. Avory was a slip of a girl named Janet Easton.
Runcie was then quite young herself, and why she was suddenly called Mrs.
no one ever quite knew, for she had never married. And now she was getting
on for sixty, and had not much to do except sympathize with the Avories and
reprove the servants. She had a nice sitting room of her own, where she sat
comfortably every afternoon when such work as she did was done, and
received visits from her pets, as she called the children (none of whom,
however, was quite so dear to her as their mother), and listened to their
adventures.
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