Mistress and Maid by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
page 70 of 418 (16%)
page 70 of 418 (16%)
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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 |
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