"Oh, Ella, how much better you are looking than you were an hour
or two since," exclaimed Mr. Hastings, who entered the chamber
just as his wife was leaving it.
"There's company in the parlor," answered Ella, tripping lightly
away, while her husband walked on into the dressing-room, where he
stepped first over a pair of slippers, then over a muslin wrapper,
and next over a towel, which Ella in her haste had left upon the
floor, her usual place for everything.
This time the visitors proved to be Eugenia and Alice, with the
first of whom the impulsive Ella was perfectly delighted, she was
so refined, so genteel, so richly dressed, and assumed withal such
a _patronizing_ air, that the shortsighted Ella felt rather
overawed, particularly when she spoke of her "uncle in India,"
with whom she was "_such_ a favorite." During their stay,
_servants_ were introduced as a topic of conversation, and on
that subject Eugenia was quite as much at home as Mrs. Hastings,
descanting at large upon the many annoyances one was compelled to
endure, both from the "ignorance and impertinence of hired help.
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