Just let Me summon your downstairs maid-" Satan snapped his fingers, and suddenly the maid was there, dustcloth in hand, her hair bound in a kerchief.

"Teachers are treated like the downstairs maid," he said.

When she surprised Leon kissing and fondling one of the downstairs maids in the pantry, her ire could not be contained.

An "assignation" Sara had called it, and in her ignorance Emily had thought of the time Leon had been kissing the downstairs maid in the pantry.

All I meant to say was that, on hot days, the downstairs maids sometimes go into that sewing closet for their fives.

One of them, Brigid, the downstairs maid, held a flickering oil lamp that cast slow-moving shadows.

The day had gone from bad to worse when Martha, the downstairs maid, had succumbed to a bout of the ague.

When, during dinner, the mistress of the house pressed a foot buzzer, it alerted the downstairs maid, who placed the next course on the dumbwaiter and pulled it up on a pulley rope.

Sometimes the downstairs maids helped.

Most of our housing stock was built between 1880-1930 and the kitchen was a small galley - either for the wife or the downstairs maid.