Elizabeth Hand was an exceptional person, and Tom had the sense to see that at once.  He paid her no coarse attentions, did not attempt to make love to her; but he liked her, and he let her see that he did.  True, she was not pretty, and she was older than he; but that to a boy of nineteen is rather flattering than otherwise.  Also, for there is a law even under the blind mystery of likings and fallings in love—­a certain weakness in him, that weakness which generally accompanies the poetical nature, clung to the quiet, solid, practical strength of hers.  He liked to talk and be listened to by those silent, admiring, gentle gray eyes; and he thought it very pleasant when, with a motherly prudence, she warned him to be careful over his cough, and gave him a flannel breast-plate to protect his chest against the cold.

When he went away Tom was so far in love that, following the free and easy ways of his class, he attempted to give Elizabeth a kiss; but she drew back so hotly that he begged her pardon, and slipped away rather confounded.

“That’s an odd sort of young woman; there’s something in her,” said he to himself.  “I’ll get a kiss, though, by-and-by.”

Meanwhile Elizabeth, having forgotten all about her dinner, sat thinking, actually doing nothing but thinking, until within half an hour of the time when her mistresses might be expected back.  They were to go direct to the hotel, breakfast, wait till the newly-married couple had departed, and then come home.  They would be sure to be weary, and want their tea.

So Elizabeth made every thing ready for them, steadily putting Tom Cliffe out of her mind.  One thing she was glad of, that talking so much about his own affairs, he had forgotten to inquire concerning hers, and was still quite ignorant even of her mistresses’ name.  He therefore could tell no tales of the Leaf family at Stowbury.  Still she determined at once to inform Miss Hilary that he had been here, but that, if she wished it, he should never come again.  And it spoke well for her resolve, that while resolving she was startled to find how very sorry she should feel if Tom Cliffe never came again.

I know I am painting this young woman with a strangely tender conscience, a refinement of feeling, and a general moral sensitiveness which people say is seldom or never to be found in her rank of life.  And why not?  Because mistresses treat servants as servants, and not as women; because in the sharp, hard line they draw, at the outset, between themselves and their domestics, they give no chance for any womanliness to be developed.  And therefore since human nature is weak, and without help from without, a long degraded class can never rise, sweet-hearts will still come crawling through back entries and down at area doors; mistresses will still have to dismiss helpless and fallen, or brazen in iniquity, many a wretched girl who once was innocent; or, if nothing actually vicious results, may have many a good, respectable servant, who left to get married, return, complaining that her “young man,” whom she knew so little about, has turned out a drunken scoundrel of a husband, who drives her back to her old comfortable “place” to beg for herself and her starving babies a morsel of bread.