'
'Right, indeed!' cried the butler; but that moment the thought came
back to him of the roar he had heard in the cellar, and he turned
pale and was silent.
The steward took it up next.
'And pray, pretty prophetess,' he said, attempting to chuck her
under the chin, 'what have I got to repent of?'
'That you know best yourself,' said the girl. 'You have but to
look into your books or your heart.'
'Can you tell me, then, what I have to repent of?' said the groom
of the chambers. 'That you know best yourself,' said the girl once
more. 'The person who told me to tell you said the servants of
this house had to repent of thieving, and lying, and unkindness,
and drinking; and they will be made to repent of them one way, if
they don't do it of themselves another.'
Then arose a great hubbub; for by this time all the servants in the
house were gathered about her, and all talked together, in towering
indignation.
'Thieving, indeed!' cried one. 'A pretty word in a house where
everything is left lying about in a shameless way, tempting poor
innocent girls! A house where nobody cares for anything, or has
the least respect to the value of property!'
'I suppose you envy me this brooch of mine,' said another. 'There
was just a half sheet of note paper about it, not a scrap more, in
a drawer that's always open in the writing table in the study!
What sort of a place is that for a jewel? Can you call it stealing
to take a thing from such a place as that? Nobody cared a straw
about it.
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