Page:Despotism and democracy; a study in Washington society and politics (IA despotismdemocra00seawiala).pdf/221

 had lost his mind, or lost his manners, or something of the sort, to account for his calling Miss Maitland by her first name.

They came upon Constance very smartly dressed, as always, and looking young and animated. She was superintending the tickets and luggage of herself and her five servants. There were innumerable boxes and trunks to be seen to, besides a couple of traps and a pair of horses, and Constance was doing it vigorously, with Scipio Africanus, her young butler, and Charles Sumner Pickup, her coachman, acting as purely ornamental adjuncts, giving her frequent and disinterested advice about the horses, the trunks, and other impedimenta, but in reality being waited on by their mistress. Whenever negroes go on a journey, they at once become children, and are treated as such by those who understand them. In a group stood the cook, an elderly, respectable negro woman, dressed in black, with the stamp of "fo' de war" written all over her honest black face, and a housemaid and a lady's maid, both chocolate coloured.

Whenever Thorndyke had observed Constance's servants before, they had been dressed with entire