There was one person who viewed the enthusiastic intimacy that had
sprung up between the houses of Coppinger and Talbot-Lowry, with a
disapproval as deep as it was prejudiced. It was a person whose
opinion might, by the thoughtless, be considered unimportant, but in
this the thoughtless would greatly err. Robert Evans was the butler at
Mount Music. He had held that position since the year 1859, from which
statement a brief and unexacting calculation will establish the fact
that he had taken office when his present master was no more than
twenty-one years old and, it being now 1894, he had so continued for
35 years. Possibly a vision of an adoring and devoted retainer may
here present itself. If so, it must be immediately dispelled. In Mr.
Evans' opinion, such devotion and adoration as the case demanded, were
owed to him by the House on which he had for so long a time bestowed
the boon of his presence, and those who were privileged with his
acquaintance had no uncertainty in the matter, since his age, his
length of service, his fidelity, and the difficulties with which he
daily contended, formed the main subjects of his conversation.

In the palmier days of the Irish gentry there were many households in
which the religion of the servants was a matter of considerable
importance, and those who could afford exclusiveness, were accustomed
to employ only Protestants as indoor servants. This may seem like an
unwarrantable invasion of the inner fortress of another individual,
making his views spiritual responsible for his fortunes temporal. But
in Ireland, in the earlier half of the troubled nineteenth century,
such differentiation was inspired not by bigotry, but by fear. When a
man's foes might be, and often were, those of his own household, that
his servants should be of his own religion was almost his only