I jumped at the news, and congratulated him upon his forethought with great heartiness.
'I have no more objection to seeing a woman's face about the place than you have yourself, Ferguson,' I said cordially; 'in fact I have just given permission to two poor ladies to pass the winter in the cottage at the back, and I want you to help me to put the place straight a bit for them. They come in on Friday. I don't want the place to fall to pieces with dry rot for want of some one to live in it.'
'Ladies won't keep the dry rot out of a place, sir,' answered Ferguson, with dry contempt. 'However, you know best, sir, what kind of cattle you like to harbour in your own barns, and I daresay they'll be snug enough till the snow comes.'
This dark suggestion was but the echo to my own fears. I was so anxious to secure a co-operation in my plan, not merely perfunctory, but zealous, knowing well, as I did, the highly-sensitive mood in which the elder at least of my new tenants would arrive, that even after this scantily-gracious speech I humbled myself more than was meet.
'By the bye, Ferguson,' I began again after a short pause, during which he helped me on with my coat, 'I'm thinking of having the little north room upstairs fitted up for you, as a sort of--sort of housekeeper's room, butler's room, you know.' Mine was such a nondescript household that it was not easy to find a designation for any of the apartments, but I wished thus neatly to intimate that if my mayor of the palace had matrimonial intentions, his do-nothing king would not stand in his way. 'Now that my household is becoming larger, I daresay you would like to have some place where you and Tim and Mrs.--Miss--what did you say her name was? could sit in the evenings.'
'Neither Mrs. nor Miss anything did I say was her name,' answered Ferguson, with grave deliberation. 'Plain Janet, sir; she leaves titles to her betters. And the kitchen does very well for me, sir, and for Janet too if you care to engage her as housekeeper, after due trial of her capabilities.'
'Oh, if she satisfies you she will satisfy me.'
'None the less I should wish you to see her, that you may understand it was for your better service and not for my own pleasure that I introduced her here. I have no opinion of women, sir, until they are past the age for frivolity, and I'm not handsome enough to go courting myself.'