The door opened.

"Please, ma'am," said the new parlour-maid, "will I do?"

She stood there, framed by the lintel, in the daintiest of aprons, the
daintiest of caps upon her golden hair; and every objection she swept
aside with the wind of her merry wilfulness. No one ever had their
way with her, nor wanted it.

"You shall be footman," she ordered, turning to me--but this time my
mother only laughed. "Wait here till I come down again." Then to my
mother: "Now, ma'am, are you ready?"

It was the first time I had seen my mother, or, indeed, any other
flesh and blood woman, in evening dress, and to tell the truth I was a
little shocked. Nay, more than a little, and showed it, I suppose;
for my mother flushed and drew her shawl over the gleaming whiteness
of her shoulders, pleading coldness. But Barbara cried out against
this, saying it was a sin such beauty should be hid; and my father,
filching a shawl with a quick hand, so dextrously indeed as to suggest
some previous practice in the feat, dropped on one knee--as though the
world were some sweet picture book--and raised my mother's hand with
grave reverence to his lips; and Barbara, standing behind my mother's
chair, insisted on my following suit, saying the Queen was receiving.
So I knelt also, glancing up shyly as towards the gracious face of
some fair lady hitherto unknown, thus Catching my first glimpse of the
philosophy of clothes.

My memory lingers upon this scene by contrast with the sad, changed
days that swiftly followed, when my mother's eyes would flash towards