She went to find Mrs. Crozier—Mrs. Crozier, the elderly, kindly autocrat of the house, Mrs. Crozier who had been housekeeper in a far finer and more magnificent mansion than this, no less a place than Dwennington Hall, the seat of the Duke of Grandon.
"Mrs. Crozier, I have engaged a young village girl, Betty Hanson, granddaughter of Mrs. Hanson, who lives in the cottage up the road towards Little Stretton, she is to be my lady’s maid. She is only a child and she will feel strange here at first so——"
"I quite understand, my lady, I’ll look after the little thing and make her feel quite at home!"
"Thank you, you do so readily understand me, Mrs. Crozier."
"It’s easy enough to understand your Ladyship," Mrs. Crozier said. "There is always some kindly thought in your head, my lady, for others—I know Mrs. Hanson slightly, a good and very respectable woman!"
"Will you send one of the men for Betty Hanson’s box presently? And oh Mrs. Crozier, about the fourteenth——"
"I’m making all preparations, my lady, Sir Josiah will be coming of course!" Mrs. Crozier smiled, she held Sir Josiah in very high esteem.
"Not a highly educated gentleman, perhaps," Mrs. Crozier had said over a cup of tea to Mrs. Parsmon, the doctor’s wife, "but one of the kind, Mrs. Parsmon that I call Nature’s gentlemen! That is my opinion of Sir Josiah Homewood!" So when Mrs. Crozier mentioned his name to Sir Josiah’s daughter-in-law, she smiled in a very kindly way.
"Sir Josiah will bring a friend, perhaps two, and my father will come of course," Kathleen’s voice changed a little, as it always did in some subtle manner when she spoke of her father. Her face seemed to grow a shade colder, then the cloud passed and she was smiling and thanking Mrs. Crozier again, for her intended kindness to Betty Hanson.
"I’ll see her in the morning," she said, "let her come up to me after breakfast and I’ll have a long talk with her, and O Mrs. Crozier, as she is leaving her grandmother so suddenly, she may need some things, clothes I mean—I know it is not always easy for a young girl to get all the clothes she needs"—there was a sad reminiscent smile on Kathleen’s face, "so will you get anything for her she may require and let me know?"