He had easy duties, a comfortable home, supreme
authority in the household. He was looked up to and made much of in the
village whenever he condescended to appear there; and by the rareness of
his visits to the Inn or the Reading-room, and his unwillingness to
accept hospitality from the tradesmen of Grasmere and Ambleside, he
maintained his dignity and exaggerated his importance. He had his books
and his newspapers, his evening leisure, which no one ever dared to
disturb. He had the old wing of the house for his exclusive occupation;
and no one ventured to intrude upon him in his privacy. There was a bell
in the corridor which communicated with his rooms, and by this bell he
was always summoned. There were servants who had been ten years at
Fellside, and who had never crossed the threshold of the red cloth door
which was the only communication between the new house and the old one.
Steadman's wife performed all household duties of cooking and cleaning
in the south wing, where she and her husband took all their meals, and
lived entirely apart from the other servants, an exclusiveness which was
secretly resented by the establishment.
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