Adah was too pretty, too stylish, to suit the prim Eudora, who felt
keenly how she must suffer by comparison with her sister's waiting maid.
Even unsuspicious Anna saw the point, and smiling archly asked "what she
could do to make Rose less attractive."
In some things Anna could not have her way, and when her mother and
sisters insisted that they would not keep a separate table for Markham,
as they called Adah, she yielded, secretly bidding Pamelia see that
everything was comfortable and nice for Mrs. Markham and her little boy.
There was hardly need for this injunction, for in the kitchen Adah was
regarded as far superior to those who would have trampled her down, and
her presence among the servants was not without its influence, softening
Jim's rough, loud ways, and making both Dixson and Pamelia more careful
of their words and manners when she was with them. Much, too, they grew
to love and pet the little Willie, who, accustomed to the free range of
Spring Bank, asserted the same right at Terrace Hill, going where he
pleased, putting himself so often in Mrs. Richards' way, that she began
at last to notice him, and if no one was near, to caress the handsome
boy. Asenath and Eudora held out longer, but even they were not proof
against Willie's winning ways.
It was many weeks ere Adah wrote to Alice Johnson, and when at last she
did, she said of Terrace Hill: "I am happier here than I at first supposed it possible. The older
ladies were so proud, so cold, so domineering, that it made me very
wretched, in spite of sweet Anna's kindness. But there has come a
perceptible change, and they now treat me civilly, if nothing more,
while I do believe they are fond of Willie, and would miss him if he
were gone."
Adah was right in this conjecture; for had it now been optional with the
Misses Richards whether Willie should go or stay, they would have kept
him there from choice, so cheery and pleasant he made the house. Adah
was still too pretty, too stylish, to suit their ideas of a servant; but
when, as time passed on, they found she did not presume at all on her
good looks, but meekly kept her place as Anna's maid or companion, they
dropped the haughty manner they had at first assumed, and treated her
with civility, if not with kindness.
With Anna it was different. Won by Adah's gentleness and purity, she
came at last to love her almost as much as if she had been a younger
sister. Adah was not a servant to her, but a companion, a friend, with
whom she daily held familiar converse, learning from her much that was
good, and prizing her more and more as the winter weeks went swiftly by.