In fact, Dinah ruled over the woolly
heads of the younger members with a rod of iron, and seemed to consider
them born for no earthly purpose but to "save her steps," as she phrased
it. It was the spirit of the system under which she had grown up, and
she carried it out to its full extent.
Miss Ophelia, after passing on her reformatory tour through all the
other parts of the establishment, now entered the kitchen. Dinah had
heard, from various sources, what was going on, and resolved to stand on
defensive and conservative ground,--mentally determined to oppose and
ignore every new measure, without any actual and observable contest.
The kitchen was a large, brick-floored apartment, with a great
old-fashioned fireplace stretching along one side of it,--an arrangement
which St. Clair had vainly tried to persuade Dinah to exchange for the
convenience of a modern cook-stove. Not she. No Pusseyite, or
conservative of any school, was ever more inflexibly attached to
time-honored inconveniences than Dinah.
When St. Clair had first returned from the North, impressed with the
system and order of his uncle's kitchen arrangements, he had largely
provided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers, and various
apparatus, to induce systematic regulation, under the sanguine illusion
that it would be of any possible assistance to Dinah in her
arrangements.
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