If she could not sit in the
post of honour at her father's dinner-table, as she had sat so long, it
was something to reign supreme in the store-room; if she found herself a
secondary person in the drawing-room, and that unpunctilious callers were
apt to forget the particular card due to her, she could at least hold on
by the keys of those closets in which the superfine china services for Mr.
Granger's great dinners were stored away, with chamois leather between all
the plates and dishes. She had still the whip-hand of the housekeeper, and
could ordain how many French plums and how many muscatel raisins were to
be consumed in a given period. She could bring her powers of arithmetic to
bear upon wax-candles, and torment the souls of hapless underlings by the
precision of her calculations. She had an eye to the preserves; and if
awakened suddenly in the dead of the night could have told, to a jar, how
many pots of strawberry, and raspberry, and currant, and greengage were
ranged on the capacious shelves of that stronghold of her power, the
store-room.
Even Lady Laura's diplomacy failed here. The genius of a Talleyrand would
not have dislodged Miss Granger.
"I like to feel that I am of _some_ use to papa," she remarked very often,
with the air of a household Antigone. "He has new outlets for his money
now, and it is more than ever my duty as a daughter to protect him from the
wastefulness of servants.
Pages:
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420