She had been maid of honour to Queen Charlotte: a Hanbury of that old
stock that flourished in the days of the Plantagenets, and heiress of all
the land that remained to the family, of the great estates which had once
stretched into four separate counties. Hanbury Court was hers by right.
She had married Lord Ludlow, and had lived for many years at his various
seats, and away from her ancestral home. She had lost all her children
but one, and most of them had died at these houses of Lord Ludlow's; and,
I dare say, that gave my lady a distaste to the places, and a longing to
come back to Hanbury Court, where she had been so happy as a girl. I
imagine her girlhood had been the happiest time of her life; for, now I
think of it, most of her opinions, when I knew her in later life, were
singular enough then, but had been universally prevalent fifty years
before. For instance, while I lived at Hanbury Court, the cry for
education was beginning to come up: Mr. Raikes had set up his Sunday
Schools; and some clergymen were all for teaching writing and arithmetic,
as well as reading. My lady would have none of this; it was levelling
and revolutionary, she said. When a young woman came to be hired, my
lady would have her in, and see if she liked her looks and her dress, and
question her about her family. Her ladyship laid great stress upon this
latter point, saying that a girl who did not warm up when any interest or
curiosity was expressed about her mother, or the "baby" (if there was
one), was not likely to make a good servant. Then she would make her put
out her feet, to see if they were well and neatly shod. Then she would
bid her say the Lord's Prayer and the Creed. Then she inquired if she
could write. If she could, and she had liked all that had gone before,
her face sank--it was a great disappointment, for it was an all but
inviolable rule with her never to engage a servant who could write. But
I have known her ladyship break through it, although in both cases in
which she did so she put the girl's principles to a further and unusual