Eliza Margaret Jane Humphreys

“ Surely there's not more for a servant to do now than there was then?"
"I have my own reasons," snapped Catherine. "I'm not one to make beasts of burden of my servants."
"Indeed," said Margaret sharply, " I think your Scotch treasure would not be easily made into a beast of burden. It strikes me that she does pretty much what she pleases here. I never came across such a very plain-spoken person. Which reminds me, Aunt Catherine, that I should feel obliged by your ordering her to make a fire in my room this evening; it is as cold as a vault. ”

“ There is no selfishness at once so intense and so hopeless as the selfishness of old age. It holds all the exactions of childhood, and entails none of its penalties.
You can punish a child for insisting on having its own way, grasping at all that pleases it, and generally upsetting do- mestic comfort, but you cannot punish an old person — especially a relative. ”

“ Why, the breakfast this morning was only fit for a kitchen. For goodness sake, don't let yourself get out of the ways of decent civilized life altogether! "
"Tut-tut, Margaret," said the old man, "it does well enough for me. I want no fripperies and nonsense at my time of life ! As long as my room is warm and comfor- table, and I get my dram in the morning, and my glass of toddy in the afternoon, and the food is soft for my old teeth, I wouldn't be troubling these women folk as to how they set a cloth, or what way they fix the chairs and tables. ”