Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/199

 the footmen were like gentlemen ushers, all the masters and mistresses like so many ambassadors and ambassadresses, such form and etiquette were preserved in all the routine of visits and parties. Every person kept his station, and precise rules were laid down for each inmate of the family. Thus, the lady's maid was not allowed to wear white, nor curls, nor heels to her shoes, beyond a certain height; and Lady Stanhope had in her room a set of instruments and implements of punishment to enforce her orders on all occasions. There were scissors to cut off fine curls, a rod to whip with, &c., &c.

No poor woman lay-in in the neighbourhood, but two guineas in money, baby linen, a blanket, some posset, two bottles of wine, and other necessaries, were sent to her. If any one among the servants was sick, the housekeeper, with the still-room maid behind her, was seen carrying the barley-water, the gruel, the medicine, &c., to administer to the patient, according to the doctor's orders. In the hopping time, all the vagrants and Irish hoppers were locked up every night in a barn by themselves, and suffered to have no communication with the household. A thousand pieces of dirty linen were washed every week, and the washhouse had four different stone troughs, from which the linen was handed, piece by piece, by the washerwomen from the scalder down to the rinser. In the