ought to manage in great houses I can not say; but in our small house
it will be easier and better not to alter our simple ways. Trusting
the girl--if she is a good girl--will only make her more trustworthy;
if she is bad, we shall the sooner find it out and let her go."

But Elizabeth did not go. A year passed; two years; her wages were
raised, and with them her domestic position. From a "girl" she was
converted into a regular servant; her pinafores gave place to
grown-up gowns and aprons; and her rough head, at Miss Selina's
incessant instance, was concealed by a cap--caps being considered by
that lady as the proper and indispensable badge of servant-hood.

To say that during her transition state, or even now that she had
reached the cap era, Elizabeth gave her mistresses no trouble, would
be stating a self-evident improbability. What young lass under
seventeen, of any rank, does not cause plenty of trouble to her
natural guardians? Who can "put an old head on young shoulders?" or
expect from girls at the most unformed and unsatisfactory period of
life that complete moral and mental discipline, that unfailing
self-control, that perfection of temper, and every thing else which,
of course, all mistresses always have?

I am obliged to confess that Elizabeth had a few--nay, not a
few--most obstinate faults; that no child tries its parents, no pupil
its school teachers, more than she tried her three mistresses at
intervals. She was often thoughtless and careless, brusque in her
manner, slovenly, in her dress; sometimes she was down-right "bad,"
filled full--as some of her elders and betters are, at all ages--with
absolute naughtiness; when she would sulk for hours and days
together, and make the whole family uncomfortable, as many a servant