tale. He was so pleased with it, that he would call his lady
and his two daughters to hear it, and it made mirth enough
among them, you may be sure.

However, not a week had passed over, but on a sudden comes
Mrs. Mayoress and her two daughters to the house to see my
old nurse, and to see her school and the children. When they
had looked about them a little, 'Well, Mrs. ----,' says the
Mayoress to my nurse, 'and pray which is the little lass that
intends to be a gentlewoman?' I heard her, and I was terribly
frighted at first, though I did not know why neither; but Mrs.
Mayoress comes up to me. 'Well, miss,' says she, 'and what
are you at work upon?' The word miss was a language that
had hardly been heard of in our school, and I wondered what
sad name it was she called me. However, I stood up, made a
curtsy, and she took my work out of my hand, looked on it,
and said it was very well; then she took up one of the hands.
'Nay,' says she, 'the child may come to be a gentlewoman for
aught anybody knows; she has a gentlewoman's hand,' says she.
This pleased me mightily, you may be sure; but Mrs. Mayoress
did not stop there, but giving me my work again, she put her
hand in her pocket, gave me a shilling, and bid me mind my
work, and learn to work well, and I might be a gentlewoman
for aught she knew.

Now all this while my good old nurse, Mrs. Mayoress, and all
the rest of them did not understand me at all, for they meant
one sort of thing by the word gentlewoman, and I meant quite
another; for alas! all I understood by being a gentlewoman was
to be able to work for myself, and get enough to keep me