her arms, and welcomed her to her husband's home in Lancashire.
Excepting for the short period of her own married life, Bridget
Fitzgerald had never left her nursling. Her marriage--to one above
her in rank--had been unhappy. Her husband had died, and left her in
even greater poverty than that in which she was when he had first met
with her. She had one child, the beautiful daughter who came riding
on the waggon-load of furniture that was brought to the Manor-house.
Madame Starkey had taken her again into her service when she became a
widow. She and her daughter had followed "the mistress" in all her
fortunes; they had lived at St. Germains and at Antwerp, and were now
come to her home in Lancashire. As soon as Bridget had arrived
there, the Squire gave her a cottage of her own, and took more pains
in furnishing it for her than he did in anything else out of his own
house. It was only nominally her residence. She was constantly up
at the great house; indeed, it was but a short cut across the woods
from her own home to the home of her nursling. Her daughter Mary, in
like manner, moved from one house to the other at her own will.
Madam loved both mother and child dearly. They had great influence
over her, and, through her, over her husband. Whatever Bridget or
Mary willed was sure to come to pass. They were not disliked; for,
though wild and passionate, they were also generous by nature. But
the other servants were afraid of them, as being in secret the ruling
spirits of the household. The Squire had lost his interest in all
secular things; Madam was gentle, affectionate, and yielding. Both
husband and wife were tenderly attached to each other and to their
boy; but they grew more and more to shun the trouble of decision on
any point; and hence it was that Bridget could exert such despotic
power. But if everyone else yielded to her "magic of a superior
mind," her daughter not unfrequently rebelled. She and her mother
were too much alike to agree. There were wild quarrels between them,