Read "Mistress and Maid" by Dinah Mulock online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In relating so much about her mistresses, I have lately seemed to overlook Elizabeth Hand.
She was a person easy enough to be overlooked. She never put herself forward, not even now, when Miss Hilary's absence caused the weight of housekeeping and domestic management to fall chiefly upon her. She went about her duties as soberly and silently as she had done in her girlhood; even Miss Leaf could not draw her into much demonstrativeness: she was one of those people who never "come out" till they are strongly needed, and then -- But it remained to be proved what this girl would be.