What the Big House Owes to us.What we Owe to the Big House.
1.As much of our company as itlikes to command.1.Heartburnings from envy. 2.As much dance music as itcan get out of our fingers.2.Headaches from dissipation. 3.The complete transfer of allthe bores among its guestsfrom its shoulders to ours.3.The chronic discontent ofour three maids. 4.The entire management ofits Workhouse teas.4.The utter demoralisation ofour boot-boy. 5.The wear and tear of mindof all its Christmas-treesand bran-pies.5.The acquaintance of severaldamaged fine ladies. 6.The physicking of its sickdogs.6.A roll of red flannel fromthe last wedding. 7.The setting its canaries'broken legs.7.The occasional use of agarden-hose. 8.The general cheerful andgrateful charing for it.
'There! I do not think that the joys and sorrows of living in a little house under the shadow of a big one were ever more lucidly set forth,' says an elder sister, holding up the slate on which she has just been totting up this ingenious debit and credit account to a pink junior, kneeling, head on hand, beside her; a junior who, not so long ago, did sums on that very slate, and the straggle of briony round whose sailor-hat tells that she has only just left the sunburnt harvest-fields and the overgrown August hedgerows behind her.
