I talked to her almost every day of working hard; and in short I did nothing but work and cry all day, which grieved the good kind woman so much, that at last she began to be concerned for me, for she loved me very well.
One day after this, as she came into the room, where all the poor children were at work, she sat down just over against me, not in her usual place as mistress, but as if she had set herself on purpose to observe me, and see me work: I was doing something she had set me to, as I remember it was marking some shirts, which she had taken to make, and after a while she began to talk to me: “Thou foolish child,” says she, “thou art always crying,” (for I was crying then). “Prithee, what dost cry for?”
“Because they will take me away,” says I, “and put me to service, and I can’t work housework.”
“Well, child,” says she, “but though you can’t work housework you will learn it in time, and they won’t put you to hard things at first.”
“Yes they will,” says I, “and if I can’t do it, they will beat me, and the maids will beat me to make me do great work, and I am but a little girl, and I can’t do it.” And then I cried again, till I could not speak any more.
This moved my good motherly nurse, so that she resolved I should not go to service yet, so she bid me not cry, and she would speak to Mr. Mayor, and I should not go to service till I was bigger.
Well, this did not satisfy me, for to think of going to service at all was such a frightful thing to me, that if she had assured me I should not have gone till I was twenty years old, it would have been the same to me, I should have cried all the time, with the very apprehension of its being to be so at last.
When she saw that I was not pacified yet, she began to be angry with me. “And what would you have,” says she. “Don’t I tell you that you shall not go to service till you are bigger?”
“Ay,” says I, “but then I must go at last.”
“Why, what,” said she, “is the girl mad? What would you be, a gentlewoman?”
“Yes,” says I, and cried heartily till I roared out again.
This set the old gentlewoman a-laughing at me, as you may be sure it would.
“Well, madam, forsooth,” says she, gibing at me, “you would be a gentlewoman, and how will you come to be a gentlewoman? What, will you do it by your fingers’ ends?”
“Yes,” says I again, very innocently.
“Why, what can you earn,” says she, “what can you get a day at your work?”
“Threepence,” said I, “when I spin, and fourpence when I work plain work.”
“Alas! poor gentlewoman,” said she again, laughing, “what will that do for thee?”
“It will keep me,” says I, “if you will let me live with you;” and this I said in such a poor petitioning tone, that it made the poor woman’s heart yearn to me, as she told me afterwards.
“But,” says she, “that will not keep you and buy you clothes too; and who must buy the little gentlewoman clothes?” says she, and smiled all the while at me.
“I will work harder then,” says I, “and you shall have it all.”
“Poor child! It won’t keep you,” said she, “it will hardly find you victuals.”
“Then I would have no victuals,” says I again, very innocently, “let me but live with you.”
“Why, can you live without victuals?” says she.
“Yes,” again says I, very much like a child, you may be sure, and still I cried heartily.
I had no policy in all this, you may easily see it was all nature, but it was joined with so much innocence, and so much passion, that in short, it set the good motherly creature a-weeping too, and at last she cried as fast as I did, and then took me, and led me out of the teaching room.
“Come,” says she, “you shan’t go to service, you shall live with me,” and this pacified me for the present.
After this, she going to wait on the Mayor, my story came up, and my good nurse told Mr. Mayor the whole 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 is to be a gentlewoman?” I heard her, and I was terrible frighted, 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 looked upon one of my hands. “Nay, she may come to be a gentlewoman,” says she, “for ought I know; she has a lady’s hand, I assure you.” This pleased me mightily; but Mrs. Mayoress did not stop there, but 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 ought she knew.
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 without going to service, whereas they meant to live great and high, and I know not what.
Well, after Mrs. Mayoress was gone, her two daughters came in, and they called for the gentlewoman too, and they talked a long while to me, and I answered them in my innocent way; but always if they asked whether I resolved to be a gentlewoman, I answered, “Yes.” At last they asked me, what a gentlewoman was? That puzzled me much; however, I explained myself negatively, that it was one that did not go to service, to do housework; they were mightily pleased, and liked my little prattle to them, which it seems was agreeable enough to them, and they gave me money too.
As for my money, I gave it all to my Mistress Nurse, as I called her, and told her, she should have all I got when I was a gentlewoman, as well as now; by this and some other of my talk, my old tutoress began to understand what I meant by being a gentlewoman; and that it was no more than to be able to get my bread by my own work, and at last, she asked me whether it was not so.
I told her, “Yes,” and insisted on it, that to do so, was to be a gentlewoman; “for,” says I, “there is such a one,” naming a woman that mended lace, and washed the ladies’ laced-heads; “she,” says I, “is a gentlewoman, and they call her madam.”
“Poor child,” says my good old nurse, “you may soon be such a gentlewoman as that, for she is a person of ill fame, and has had two bastards.”
I did not understand anything of that; but I answered, “I am sure they call her madam, and she does not go to service nor do housework,” and therefore I insisted, that she was a gentlewoman, and I would be such a gentlewoman as that.
The ladies were told all this again, and they made themselves merry with it, and every now and then Mr. Mayor’s daughters would come and see me, and ask where the little gentlewoman was, which made me not a little proud of myself besides. I was often visited by these young ladies, and sometimes they brought others with them; so that I was known by it almost all over the town.
I was now about ten years old, and began to look a little womanish, for I was mighty grave, very mannerly, and as I had often heard the ladies say I was pretty, and would be very handsome, you may be sure it made me not a little proud: however, that pride had no ill effect upon me yet, only as they often gave me money, and I gave