Mrs. Ansey

Mrs. Ansey is Hartley's old acquaintance, a maid she once had been in service with and has not seen in a couple of years.¹ Hartley meets her again when she goes to town to run errands for Mrs. Brympton, and tells her friend what has happened in her life in the interval. After hearing where Hartley lives now, Mrs. Ansey “[rolls] up her eyes and [pulls] a long face”.²

She is not happy to hear where Hartley works now since she has heard that Mrs. Brympton has changed “four maids in the last six months”³ because “nobody could stay in the house”⁴ One of Mrs. Ansey's friend has worked there, but left as well. Hartley wonders whether it was because of their looks why they all left, indicating that Mr. Brympton might be the reason.⁵

Although Hartley knows that Mrs. Ansey is an “idle gossip”,⁶ she cannot help but to wonder why all those maids left the Brympton house.

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1 Lewis, R. W. B. The Collected Short Stories of Edith Wharton. (Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968. 457-474, Print.), 463.

2 Ibid.

3Ibid., 464.

4Ibid.

5Ibid.

6Ibid.