Meantime at No 15 the afternoon had passed heavily enough.  Miss Selina had gone to lie down; she always did of Sundays, and Elizabeth, after making her comfortable, by the little attentions the lady always required, had descended to the dreary wash house, which had been appropriated to herself, under the name of a “private kitchen,” in the which, after all the cleanings and improvements she could achieve, sat like Marius among the rains of Carthage, and sighed for the tidy bright house place at Stowbury.  Already, from her brief experience, she had decided that London people were horrid shams, because they did not in the least care to have their kitchens comfortable.  She wondered how she should ever exist in this one, and might have carried her sad and sullen face up stairs, if Miss Leaf had not come down stairs, and glancing about with that ever gentle smile of hers, said kindly, “Well, it is not very pleasant, but you have made the best of it, Elizabeth.  We must all put up with something, you know.  Now, as my eyes are not very good to-day, suppose you come up and read me a chapter.”

So, in the quiet parlor, the maid sat down opposite her mistress, and read aloud out of that Book which says distinctly:  “Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ:  knowing, that whatsoever good thing a man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.”

And yet says immediately after:  “Ye masters, to the same things unto them, forbearing threatening:  knowing that your Master also is in heaven; neither is there respect of persons with him.”

And I think that Master whom Paul served, not in preaching only, but also in practice, when he sent back the slave Onesimus to Philemon, praying that he might be received, “no’ now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved,” that Divine Master must have looked tenderly upon these two women—­both women, though of such different age and position, and taught them through His Spirit in His word, as only He can teach.

The reading was disturbed by a carriage driving up to the door, and a knock, a tremendously grand and forcible footman’s knock, which made Miss Leaf start in her easy chair.

“But it can’t be visitors to us.  We know nobody.  Sit still, Elizabeth.”

It was a visitor, however, though by what ingenuity he found them out remained, when they came to think of it, a great puzzle.  A card was sent in by the dirty servant of Mrs. Jones, speedily followed by a stout, bald headed, round faced man—­I suppose I ought to write “gentleman”—­in whom, though she had not seen him for years, Miss Leaf found no difficulty in recognizing the grocer’s prentice boy, now Mr. Peter Ascott, of Russell Square.

She rose to receive him:  there was always a stateliness in Miss Leaf’s reception of strangers; a slight formality belonging to her own past generation, and to the time when the Leafs were a “county family.”  Perhaps this extra dignity, graceful as it was, overpowered the little man; or else, being a bachelor, he was unaccustomed to ladies’ society:  but he grew red in the face, twiddled his hat, and then cast a sharp inquisitive glance toward her.