Bettina declined the wrap, but passed on to the next picture, requesting the woman to come with her and act as cicerone.
"What is your name? I ought to know it," she said.
"And how long have you lived here, Parlett?"
"Over forty years, my lady. I was here in the old lord's time. That is his picture, with his lady next to him."
Bettina looked with interest at the two pictures designated.
"He is thought to be very much like his present lordship," said the housekeeper.
"Yes, I see it," said Bettina, feeling an instinct to guard her countenance. Here were the same keen eyes, the same resolute jaw, the same thin lips and hard lines about the mouth. Only in the older face they were yet more accentuated, and instead of the not unbecoming thinness of hair which showed in the son, there was a frank expanse of bald head which made his features all the harder.
Hurrying away from the contemplation of this portrait, Bettina turned to its companion. Here she encountered a face and form which were truly all womanly, if by womanliness is meant abject submission and self-effacement. The poor little lady looked patiently hopeless, and her deprecating air seemed the last in the world calculated to hold its own against such a lord. That she had not done so--of her own full surrender of herself, in mind and soul and body--the picture seemed a plain representation.
"Poor woman! She looks as if she had suffered," said Bettina.
"Oh yes, my lady," Parlett answered, as if divided between the inclination to talk and the duty to be silent.
"She was unhappy, then?" said Bettina. "You need not hesitate to answer. His lordship has told me what a trusted servant of the family you are, and I shall treat you as such. You need not fear to speak to me quite freely."
"Yes, my lady, she had a great deal of sadness in her life," went on the housekeeper, thus encouraged. "She had six daughters before she had a son, and this was naturally a disappointment to his lordship. One after the other these children died, which grieved her ladyship sorely, for she was a very devoted mother. His lordship had never noticed them much, being angry at not having an heir, and this made my lady all the fonder of them. She had little constitution herself, and the children were sickly. At last, however, an heir was born, but her ladyship died at his birth. It seemed a pity, my lady, did it not? For his lordship was greatly pleased with the heir, and, of course, my lady would have been much happier after that."