There’s a scene near the end of the movie Gosford Park, (Julian Fellowes’s precursor to Downton Abby), where the character of Mrs. Wilson, the housekeeper, explains what it is that “a good servant has that separates them” from the others:
“It’s the gift of anticipation…I know when they’ll be hungry, and the food is ready. I know when they’ll be tired, and the bed is turned down. I know it before they know it themselves.”