Mrs. Alexander was, or so her friends said, somewhat given to vaunting
herself of her paragons, under which heading, it may be admitted,
practically all her household were included. She was, indeed, one of
those persons who may or may not be heroes to their valets, but whose
valets are almost invariably heroes to them. It was, therefore,
excessively discomposing to her that, during the following week, in the
very height of apparently cloudless domestic tranquillity, the housemaid
and the parlour-maid should in one black hour successively demand an
audience, and successively, in the floods of tears proper to such
occasions, give warning. Inquiry as to their reasons was fruitless. They
were unhappy: one said she wouldn't get her appetite, and that her
mother was sick; the other said she wouldn't get her sleep in it, and
there was things--sob--going on--sob.

Mrs. Alexander concluded the interview abruptly, and descended to the
kitchen to interview her queen paragon, Barnet, on the crisis.

Miss Barnet was a stout and comely English lady, of that liberal forty
that frankly admits itself in advertisements to be twenty-eight. It was
understood that she had only accepted office in Ireland because, in the
first place, the butler to whom she had long been affianced had married
another, and because, in the second place, she had a brother buried in
Belfast. She was, perhaps, the one person in the world whose opinion
about poultry Mrs. Alexander ranked higher than her own. She now allowed
a restrained acidity to mingle with her dignity of manner, scarcely more
than the calculated lemon essence in her faultless castle puddings, but
enough to indicate that she, too, had grievances. _She_ didn't know why
they were leaving. She had heard some talk about a fairy or something,
but she didn't hold with such nonsense.