And, continuing her confidences to the under-housemaid, the young lady
said, "I like to know things for the pleasure of talking about them, but
he for the pleasure of holding his tongue." Peggy was Miss Margaret
Barfield, a cousin, the daughter of a rich brewer. "If he brings in your
letters in the morning he hands them to you just as if he knew whom they
are from. Ugly little beast; it irritates me when he comes into the room."

"He hates women, Miss; he never lets us near his pantry, and he keeps
William there talking racing."

"Ah, William is very different. He ought never to have been a servant. His
family was once quite as good as the Barfields."

"So I have heard, Miss. But the world is that full of ups and downs you
never can tell who is who. But we all likes William and 'ates that little
man and his pantry. Mrs. Latch calls him the 'evil genius.'"

A furtive and clandestine little man, ashamed of his women-folk and
keeping them out of sight as much as possible. His wife a pale, dim woman,
tall as he was short, preserving still some of the graces of the
lady's-maid, shy either by nature or by the severe rule of her lord,
always anxious to obliterate herself against the hedges when you met her
in the lane or against the pantry door when any of the family knocked to
ask for hot water, or came with a letter for the post. By nature a
bachelor, he was instinctively ashamed of his family, and when the
weary-looking wife, the thin, shy girl, or the corpulent, stupid-faced son
were with him and he heard steps outside, he would come out like a little
wasp, and, unmistakably resenting the intrusion, would ask what was
wanted.