-maid, immediately before my marriage;
she had been a seamstress, and her health had been much injured by
constantly stooping at her sedentary employment. I took her into my
service at a salary of L25 a year. She had little to do; I took care
that every day she should be out walking for at least an hour; she had
two holidays a week, all my discarded wardrobe, and every kindness and
attention of every sort that I could bestow upon her, for she was very
gentle and pleasant to me, and I liked her very much. A short time ago,
she gave me warning; the first reason she assigned for doing so was that
she didn't think she should like living in the country, but finally it
resolved itself into this--that she could not bear _being a servant_.
She told me that she had no intention of seeking any other situation,
for that she knew very well that after mine she could find none that she
would like, but she said the sense of entire independence was necessary
to her happiness, and she could not exist any longer in a state of
"_servitude_." She told me she was going to resume her former life, or
rather, as I should say, her former process of dying, for it was
literally that; she took her wages, and left me. She was very pretty and
refined, and rejoiced in the singular Christian name of Unity.[2]

[2] A lady's-maid was quite an unusual member of a household in
America, at this time; I remember no lady in Philadelphia who then
had such an attendant: it is not impossible that the singularity of
her service, and therefore apparently anomalous character of her
position, may have helped to disgust my maid Unity with her
situation. Probably the influence of Quaker modes of thought, and
feeling, and habits of life (even among such of the community as
were not "friends"--technically so called), had produced the
peculiarities which characterized the Philadelphian society of that
day, and made people among whom I lived strange to me--as I to them.

The other instance of domestic manners in these parts was furnished me
by a woman whom I engaged as cook; terms agreed upon, everything
settled: two days after, she sent me word that she had "_changed her
mind_,"--that's all--isn't it pleasant?...

My dear H----, you half fly into a rage with me all across the Atlantic,
because I tell you that I hope ere long to see you; really that was not
quite the return I expected for what I thought would be agreeable news
to