Woolper felt that she could not do too much in her benefactor's
service. She had already shown herself a clever managing housekeeper; had
reformed abuses, and introduced a new system of care and economy
below-stairs, to the utter bewilderment of poor Georgy, for whom the
responsibilities of the gothic villa had been an overwhelming burden.
Georgy was not particularly grateful to the energetic old Yorkshirewoman
who had taken this burden off her hands, but she was submissive.
"I never felt myself much in the house, my dear," she said to Lotta; "but
I am sure since Ann Woolper has been here I have felt myself a cipher."
Mrs. Woolper, naturally sharp and observant, was not slow to perceive
that Mr. Sheldon was abnormally anxious about his stepdaughter. She
ascribed this anxiety to a suspicious nature, an inherent distrust of
other people on the part of her master, and in some measure to his
ignorance of womankind.
"He seems to think that she'd run away and get married on the sly, at a
word from that young man; but he doesn't know what a dear innocent soul
she is, and how sorry she'd be to displease any one that's kind to her. I
don't know anything about Miss Paget. She's more stand-offish than our
own Miss, though she is little better than a genteel kind of servant;
but she seems fair-spoken enough. As to our Miss, bless her dear heart!
she want's no watching, I'll lay.
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