leisure by day and quiet rest by night on the other. How far his
strong exaggerated feelings had any foundation in truth, it is for
you to judge. I am afraid that Mary's determination not to go to
service arose from far less sensible thoughts on the subject than
her father's. Three years of independence of action (since her
mother's death such a time had now elapsed) had little inclined her
to submit to rules as to hours and associates, to regulate her dress
by a mistress's ideas of propriety, to lose the dear feminine
privileges of gossiping with a merry neighbour, and working night
and day to help one who was sorrowful. Besides all this, the
sayings of her absent, the mysterious aunt Esther, had an
unacknowledged influence over Mary. She knew she was very pretty;
the factory people as they poured from the mills, and in their
freedom told the truth (whatever it might be) to every passer-by,
had early let Mary into the secret of her beauty. If their remarks
had fallen on an unheeding ear, there were always young men enough,
in a different rank from her own, who were willing to compliment the
pretty weaver's daughter as they met her in the streets. Besides,
trust a girl of sixteen for knowing it well if she is pretty;
concerning her plainness she may be ignorant. So with this
consciousness she had early determined that her beauty should make
her a lady; the rank she coveted the more for her father's abuse;
the rank to which she firmly believed her lost aunt Esther had
arrived. Now, while a servant must often drudge and be dirty, must
be known as his servant by all who visited at her master's house, a
dressmaker's apprentice must (or so Mary thought) be always dressed
with a certain regard to appearances; must never soil her hands, and
need never redden or dirty her face with hard labour. Before my
telling you so truly what folly Mary felt or thought, injures her
without redemption in your opinion, think what are the silly fancies