Jean Webster

“ It was strictly against the rules to smoke in the stables, but Joe had been autocrat so long that he made his own rules. He could trust himself—but woe to the groom who so much as scratched a safety-match within his domain.
"A new maid is it?" he inquired, as a grin of comprehension leisurely spread itself across his good-natured rubicund face. "I s'pose you're thinking it's pretty near your turn, hey, Billy?"
"I don't care nothin' about new maids," said Billy, sulkily, "but Mrs. Carter said me."
"You're awful particular all of a sudden about obeying orders," said Joe. ”

“ An explosion sounded from the laurels, and Peter, who knew what it meant, cut Trixy viciously.
He dumped his passenger's box upon the back veranda with a thud, and drove on to the stables where he unhitched poor patient little Trixy in a most unsympathetic fashion. Billy strolled in while he was still engaged with her harness. Peter affected not to notice him. Billy commenced to hum, "Je vous aime, je vous adore." He was no French scholar; he had not had Peter's advantages, but the tune alone was sufficiently suggestive. ”

“ The last maid—the one who had left four days before—had been French, and during her three weeks' reign at Willowbrook she had stirred to its foundations every unattached masculine heart on the premises. Even Simpkins, the elderly English butler, had unbent and smiled foolishly when she coquettishly chucked him under the chin in passing through the hall. ”

“ He jauntily took his seat, waved his whip toward Billy and Joe, and touched up Trixy with a grin of farewell.
Later in the evening the men were lounging in a clump of laurels at one side of the carriage-house, where a hammock and several battered veranda chairs had drifted out from the house for the use of the stable hands. Simpkins, who occasionally unbent sufficiently to join them, was with the party to-night, and he heard the story of Peter's latest perfidy. Simpkins could sympathize with Billy; his own sensibilities had been sadly lacerated in the matter of Annette. ”

“ Billy applauded with appreciation.
"An' now, Peter," Peter resumed, addressing an imaginary self, "I am expectin' a new maid to-night—a pretty little French maid just like Annette. I am sure that she will like you better than any o' the other men, so I wish you to meet her at the eight-fifteen train. Be sure to be on time, for the poor little thing won't know what to do." ”

“ Carter ordered the meeting of the second maid. Ordinarily the grooms would not have been so eager to receive the assignment of an unallotted task, but the memory of Annette still rankled, and it was felt between them that the long drive from the station was a golden opportunity for gaining a solid start in the newcomer's affections.
The stablemen did not eat with the house servants; Joe's wife furnished their meals in the coachman's cottage. That evening Peter scrambled through his supper in evident haste. He had an important engagement, he explained, with a meaning glance toward Billy. ”

“ Annette, however—for a French woman—was undemonstrative. All that Joe gathered in return for his sympathetic questions (they were sympathetic; Joe was human even if he was married) was a series of indignant sniffs, and the assertion that she was going because she wanted to go. She would n't work any longer in a place like that; Mrs. Carter was an old cat, and Miss Ethel was a young one. She finished with some idiomatic French, the context of which Joe did not gather.
Billy received the news of the departure with unaffected delight, and Peter with philosophy. ”

“ For the next few days Peter's life was rendered a burden. Billy and Joe and Simpkins and Tom, even good-natured Nora in the kitchen, never met him without covert allusions to the affair. The gardener at Jasper Place, next door, called over the hedge one morning to inquire if they did n't have a new maid at their house. On the third day after the arrival the matter reached its logical conclusion.
"Hey, Pete," Billy called up to him in the loft where he was pitching down hay for the horses. "Come down here quick; there's some one wants to see you." ”

“ He had once intended to be a jockey, but in spite of an anxious avoidance of potatoes and other fattening food-stuffs, he had steadily grown away from it. When he finally reached one hundred and sixty-six pounds he relinquished his ambition forever. ”