ing;
when, just as the clock was striking eight, the same Mrs. Nelly, whom I
saw the day before in the kitchen, entered the apartment, and accosted
the young ladies, saying, 'Good morning to you, ladies, do you know that
it is time to get up?' 'Then, pray, Nelly, lace my stays, will you?'
said Miss Nancy. 'But lace mine first, and give me my other shoes; for
those I wore yesterday must be brushed, because I stepped in the dirt,
and so when you go down you must remember, and take and brush them, and
then let me have them again,' said Mary; 'but come and dress me now.'

Well, thought I, this is a rude way of speaking, indeed, something like
Miss Nancy Artless, at the house where my poor dear Softdown was so
cruelly massacred; I am sure I hope I shall not meet with the like fate
here, and I wish I was safe out of this shoe; for, perhaps, presently it
will be wanted to be put on Mary's foot; and I am sure I must not expect
to meet any mercy from a child who shows so bad a disposition as to
speak to a servant in so uncivil a manner, for no good-natured person
would do that.

With these kind of reflections I was amusing myself for some little
time, when, all on a sudden, they were put an end to, by my finding the
shoe in which I was concealed, hastily taken up; and before I had time
to recollect what I had best do, I was almost killed by some violent
blows I received, which well nigh broke every bone in my skin. I crept
quite up to the toe of the shoe, so that I was not at all seen, and the
maid, when she took up the shoes, held one in one hand, and the other in
the other, by their heels, and then slapped them hard together, to beat
out of some of the dust which was in them. This she repeated three or
four times, till I was quite stunned; and how or which way I tumbled or
got out, I know not; but when I came to myself. I was close up behind
the foot of a table, in a large apartment, where were several children,
and a gentleman and a lady, all conversing together with the greatest
good humour and harmony.

The first words I heard distinctly enough to remember, were those of
a little boy, about five years old, who, with eagerness exclaimed--'I
forget you! no that I never shall. If I was to go a hundred thousand
miles off, I am sure I shall never forget you. What! do you think I
should ever, as long as I live, if it is a million of years, forget my
own dear papa and mamma? No; that I should not, I am very, very sure
I never s