lsey petticoat, and a snood of scarlet frieze, and I was as fine as
ninepence, with the first pair of stockings on that ever I had worn in
my life, when I was taken to Dublin to a grand house by the Quay side,
to be presented to his Grace. He had almost forgotten who I was, when
his Groom of the Chamber procured us an audience. Then he remembered how
he had laughed at my gambols with Molly O'Flaherty in the hayfield, and
how they amused him, and how he thought my Romping ways might divert My
Lady Duchess his Consort, who was a pining, puling, melancholic
Temperament, and much afflicted with the Vapours, for want of something
to do. So he was pleased to smile upon me again, and to give my mother
five pounds, and to promise that I should be well bestowed in his
household as a waiting-woman, or Bower-maiden, or some such like
capacity; and then he made me a present, as though I were a puppy-dog,
to Her Grace the Duchess, and having affairs of state to attend to,
thought no more about 'Brimstone Betty.' My sprightly ways and random
talk amused her Grace for awhile; but she had too many gewgaws and
playthings, and I found, after not many days, that my popularity was on
the wane, and that I could not hope to maintain it against the
attractions of a French waiting-maid, a monkey, a parrot, a poodle, and
a little Dwarfish boy-attendant that was half fiddler and half buffoon.
So my consequence faded and faded, and I was sneered at and flouted as a
young Savage and a young Irish by the English lacqueys about the House,
and I sank from my Lady's keeping-room to the antechamber, and thence
to the servant's hall, and thence, after a very brief lapse, to the
kitchen, where I was very little better than a Scullish and
Plate-washer, and not half so well entreated as Cicely of the Cinders is
here. I pined and fretted; but time went on, and to my misfortune I was
growing taller and shapelier. I had a very clear skin, and very black
hair and eyes, and, though I say it that shouldn't, as neat a leg and
foot as you would wish to see in a summer's day, and the men folk told
me that I was comely. They only told me so, the false perfidious hounds,
for my destruction.

"Well, child, you are too young to understand these things; and I hope
that when you grow up, you will not do to poor forlorn girls as I was
done by. A dicing soldier fellow that was a hanger-on at my Lord Duke's
house, and was called Captain, ran away with me. Of course I was at