The Sensory Animals of Ston Hill

Once everything changes, it will be one after another.

First there was a satin skirt, then a whole chicken leg appeared on the plate, and then there was a whole fish on Friday.

The fish had been caught by the Earl of Arundel and Mr. O'Dole in the lake beside Maple Grove - the little lake surrounded by trees.

The lake water has just started to warm up, and the fish this spring have just hatched, and they are generally small in size.The Earl of Arundel and Mr. O'Dole sat by the lake all afternoon, and only caught three fairly large fish and half a bucket of thumb-sized fry: the fry fell into the mouth of the kitchen servants, and the three survivors of last winter were caught. They were given to the Earl, Madam and Mr. Odor who came to visit respectively.

But the lady said she hated eating fish.

Mrs. Brown, who was supposed to serve Mrs. Brown, has been ill since that day and moved out of the villa. The earl asked his servant to bring the plate in front of Mrs. upstairs to Mr. Welsh.But after the manservant left, Mr. Wales excused his wound pain and lack of appetite, and gave the fish to Grace who had been with him all the time.

When Grace danced with joy when he ate a whole chicken leg the day before, when he saw the fish now, he cried for nothing.

Before that, he could only eat bread and baked potatoes on Fridays.There was a not-so-religious maid in the kitchen who would save some broth on Thursday, the mince of which had been scooped up, for dipping bread on Friday.Later all the servants in the kitchen did the same.

But Sophie didn't allow Grace to touch the broth on Fridays, and she didn't touch it herself, and she insisted on fasting every Friday, and when Grace came of age, she asked him to do the same.Sophie did all this for the good of Grace, because he was born with more sins than others, began to lie when he was completely ignorant, and needed God's forgiveness more than others.

Of course, Grace would steal food every time because she was hungry, and Sophie seemed to know about it, but she didn't say anything to him.Sophie has always been able to hold on to this hard work, even though she eats so much and gets hungry so easily.

Other changes, seemingly unrelated to Grace, were small, but noticeable: the hallway carpet was replaced with Turkish ones, the walls of the banquet hall were covered with French silks, all the candlesticks were replaced with new ones, and several old paintings over the fireplace The portrait was moved to make room for the count and his ancestors.

Grace is very familiar with those old paintings. He often stands in front of that wall, looking up, looking at them for a long time.

In fact, those paintings are not very good, even Grace can see the rigidity of the characters in them.They are all nouveau riche, and they cannot invite really good painters.However, these portraits do not need extra beauty. Their significance lies in recording the glory, not exactly the glory of the Ston family, but the glory of this mountain village: Mrs. Ston’s fathers and grandparents are all in the paintings—these captures The mercantile ancestors bought the estate from the bankrupt nobles and replaced the ostentatious ones with their frugal portraits.Of course Grace didn't know them, he was just too bored to pass the time with these drawings.The great disadvantage of being a servant is not so much work, but so little fun, especially since William Stern stopped writing to him.

In those old paintings, he didn't know the person in one of the portraits, but William Ston told him: "That is our father."

Old Ston was also badly drawn. "It's the same problem with all the portraits of men, deliberately drawing people very old and serious... In fact, his father is a very kind person." William Ston said, "And The hair color is wrong too."

For this reason, when Grace looked at the painting, it was difficult to connect it with Oldston, but after seeing it a lot, she could occasionally see some intimacy in that painting—although the hair color was wrong, the facial features The drawing is not good, but the bridge of the nose and the shape of the face are still somewhat similar to William Ston.

However, there is a portrait that is not bad. The countess is sitting on a chair, holding Alan Stone who is still a baby in her arms. At that time, William Stone was only a child, but he already had an adult. Standing upright and upright beside his mother and younger brother.

Grace spent the most time on little William, followed by the baby-like Alan Stone, and later even the young Mrs. Stone, who let Grace paint every button on her dress I remember it all.

Mrs. Stone had been thin in her youth, and had a sort of bored meanness about her, but she wasn't a dry sausage then.Although Grace once laughed at Mrs. Stone's appearance in front of the peddler Jerry, when he saw Mrs. Stone's portrait when he was young, he admitted her beauty in his heart.

This is the most incredible thing, can a person become ugly so quickly because of the passage of time?

He saw the maids too, the young maids were always beautiful, fresh as dew-drenched flowers, but would wither, or even fall, in a few years.Of course Grace loved Sophie, but he had to admit that even Sophie, who was never married and had a child, could not escape this hidden rule.

The men were different, and the menservants had not changed so much.Of course, this may have something to do with the lack of cleanliness of the male servants when they were young, so that their aging is not so obvious, but even if they have become ugly, they can still be very arrogant.

Then the earl came, which made Grace firmer in this idea-it is impossible for a woman to be beautiful at this age, but a man can.

Grace used to feel scared and confused about this. He didn't know whether he would quickly become ugly like a woman, or he would always be proud like a man.

Fortunately, these things have stopped worrying him recently, and it has been a while since he thought about his "lie when he was completely ignorant".He seemed to think of himself quite as a girl, and Mr. Wales taught him as if he were a lady.

"Miss Grace, please don't suck the chicken bones."

"Miss Grace, please leave the fish meat that cannot be removed from the bone, and don't use your hands."

"Miss Grace, please don't lift your skirt so high."

"Miss Grace, please try to walk in a straight line."

In the first two days after she came out of the bungalow, Grace was very worried about Mr. Wilson's injury and prayed every day for him to recover quickly.At that time, he didn't expect that Mr. Wales could recover so quickly, and he didn't expect that the recovered Mr. Welsh was more nagging than Sophie.

He had long regretted always talking back to Sophie, so he tried his best to listen to what Mr. Wales said, especially Mr. Wales said: "Your Excellency hopes that Miss Grace will become better."

For an hour he had sat patiently, while an elegant maid brought by the Count played with his hair.For the first 10 minutes, he was still interested, thinking that the lady's braids were as elegant and beautiful as herself, but then she began to put the braids on the top of Grace's head, layer by layer like building a house, Stuff feathers in his hair, and Grace is baffled.

When the lady was satisfied, she took apart the hair house again, and said gently to Grace: "Let's try another hairstyle."

Grace was terrified. Fortunately, someone rang the doorbell at this time. Grace immediately jumped up from the chair exaggeratedly like a death row prisoner hearing the pardon before the guillotine: "I'll go see if it's a messenger!"

"Miss Grace, please don't lift your skirt so high! Don't run so fast!"

Grace hurriedly slowed down, took small steps and walked straight to the door, and then turned straight to the right.When he was sure that Mr. Wales could not see him, he quickly lifted the hem of his skirt again, and it was blown away like a gust of wind.

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Note: Jesus was crucified on Friday, so the Catholic Church forbids eating meat (including broth) on Friday, but fish is okay, but fish is very expensive here in Grace.Lent is to eat only one full meal a day, and half-eat the other two meals, and no snacks are allowed. Generally, there are only two days of Lent in a year.