“I spoke from my heart, I can tell you, dears, for I felt very sorry for Missus, and thought she was but a lady after all, and perhaps I’d hardly made allowances enough.  I’d lost my temper, too, as I knew after she went away.  But, you see, while she was there, it was so mortifying to be spoken to as if all the sense was on her side, when I knew it was all on mine, wherever the French and crochet may have been.  Well, but the day before I left, I broke down with another of them, as it’s fair that you should know.

“I’d felt very lonely that day, busy as I was, and in the afternoon I took myself into the scullery to give the pans a sort of good-bye cleaning, and be out of everybody’s way.  But there, in the midst of it, comes the eldest young gentleman flinging into the kitchen, shouting, ‘Cook!  Cook!  Where’s Cook?’ as usual.  I thought he was after some of his old tricks, and I had been fretting over those pans, thinking what a sad job it was to have no home to go to in the world, so I gave him a very short answer.

“‘Master James,’ says I, ’I’ve done with nonsense now, I can’t attend to you.  You must wait till the next cook comes.’

“But Master James came straight away to the scullery door, and says he, ’Cook, I’m not coming to teaze.  I’ve brought you a needle-book.  There, Cook!  It’s full of needles.  I put them all in myself.  Keep it, please.’

“Dear, dear, I can’t forget it yet,” pursued Cook, “how Master James stood on the little stone step of the scullery, with his arm stretched out, and the needle-book that he’d bought for me in his hand.  I don’t know how I thanked him, I’m sure; but I had to go back to the sink and wash the dirt off my hands before I could touch the pretty little thing, and then I told him I would keep it as long as ever I lived.

“He laughed, and says he, ‘Now shake hands, Cooky,’ and so we shook hands; and then off he ran, and I went back to my pans and fairly cried.

“‘Why, Cook,’ says I to myself, ’that lad’s got as good a heart as your own, after all.  And as to sense and behaviour, they haven’t been forced upon him yet, as they have upon you.  Latin’s Latin, and conduct’s conduct, and one doesn’t teach the other; and it’s too bad to expect more of people than what they’ve had opportunity for.’

Well, dears, that was the rule I always went by, and I’ve been in many situations since—­with single ladies, and single gentlemen, and large families, and all; and there was something to put up with in all of them; and they always told me there was a good deal to put up with in me, and perhaps there was.  However, it doesn’t matter, so long as Missus and servant go by one rule—­to make allowances, and not expect more from people than what they’ve had opportunity for; and, above all, never to be cocky when all the advantage is on their own side.  It’s a good rule, dears, and will stop many a foolish word and idle tale, if you’ll go by it.”