At the age of twenty-nine, without special training or any particular influence, she had been made housekeeper to the Duke of Bridport at Buntisford Hall, Essex. The more modern minds among the clan might affect to despise a success of that kind, but for generations there had been a sort of feudal connection between the great house of Dinneford and the honest race of yeomen who had served it. Chartered Accountant Francis might smile in a superior way, young Lawrence of Fleet Street, a perfect anarchist of a fellow, might scoff, but every true-blue Sanderson of the older generation was amazed at Harriet's achievement, and felt a personal pride in it.
Aunt Annie, who had a temperamental dislike of Harriet, was the first to admit that the rise of her niece had been very remarkable. The august Miss Sanderson was an unequaled judge of what Mr. George Sanderson called "general conditions." Her own historical career had given her peculiar facilities for gauging the lie of a country, socially speaking, her sense of values was absolutely correct, and she was constrained to admit, much as it hurt her to do so, that Harriet's success had no parallel in her experience.
Eliza Kelly occupied a very different place in the hierarchy. She was perilously near the base of the statue. Her brothers, her sisters, her uncles, her cousins, and her aunts, had always made a practice of going up in the world, but she had unmistakably come down in it. It was not that they had anything against Joe personally. He was sober, honest, a good husband, and he well knew the place allotted to him by an all-wise Providence. But when the best had been said for him
