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No unimportant personage in the household of the Claremont's was Kate Drummond, the cook. Of Irish descent, she was full of the mirthful humor of her race, with which was combined much of the sober, solid sense of the Anglo-Saxon. Never given to fine-spun theories or useless regrets, she turned every accident into a joke, and practised the philosophy others spent their time in preaching. Having talent that would ennoble any occupation, if it had been developed and cultivated, she never subjected herself to the discipline of a thought that would check the wild exuberance of her nature. She had a quick perception of facts and could make a correct application of principles, which, however, had no more connection with each other than the random strokes of a fiddle with the element of music.

A trustworthy servant, and scrupulously exact in every duty devolving upon her, she was not so fully developed in the region of conscientiousness as to be always careful of the propriety of speech, or wounding the feelings of others, when she could thus serve a turn for indulging her fun-loving disposition.