At that moment the groups in the middle of the room parted a little, and the elderly female clerk of the registry came towards Mrs. Challoner with an unctuous smile spread over her face. Following at her heels was another woman, who was, however, nearly eclipsed by her ample figure.
“I think I have found somebody to suit you, ma’am,” she said. “I think we have been most fortunate. Just the sort of person to please you is not to be found every day. It is quite Providential. I’m so glad you should see her before there is any chance of her being snapped up. I’d advise you to settle with her, madam,” she added, bending over, in a familiar whisper which made Lucy draw back. “She’d have a dozen chances if she were here half an hour. Her very appearance is enough. You’ll speak to me, please, madam, before you go away.”
As she moved aside for her “introduction” to step forward, Lucy beheld a neat, crisp little figure which might have stepped out of a Royal Academy picture of a happy cottage home or mansion nursery. This was not a young woman; she was between forty and fifty, dressed in black, with a small prim bonnet enclosing a neat white cap and tied with narrow white ribbons. The face within the bonnet was well-featured and softly ruddy, the pleasant middle-aged bloom being set off to advantage by the slight frosting of the hair visible beneath the cap. A small straw basket was held firmly in the neat cotton-gloved hands. An angel with shining wings could have hardly looked more apart than she did in that throng of coarse tawdry femininity, nor have been a more unexpected apparition. A well-trained respect, without a dash of servility, was in her voice and manner as she said—
“I am Jessie Morison, ma’am. I understand you want a servant.”
“She’s just your style, Luce,” whispered Florence; “but she’s too old! It’s no use taking people after others have got all the work out of them.”
[Illustration: FRONT VIEW OF HER MAJESTY’S AVIARY, WINDSOR.]
But few of the many who yearly stroll through the lovely glades of Windsor Park know or think of the infinite variety of bird life contained within its boundaries. Many and wide apart in nature and disposition are its feathered rovers. From the tiny tomtit to the lordly golden eagle, from the motherly white Dorking to the wild turkey of Canada, all make or have made for them their homes or their nests.
