mith's
abridged History of England, and all the books in the shape of penny
tracts and sixpenny novels they could borrow from their playmates when
school was over.

Sophy, the elder of the two, who was eighteen years of age, had been
apprenticed for the last two years with a milliner of an inferior grade
in the little seaport town; and her term of service having expired, she
had commenced making dresses in a humble way for the servants in
respectable families. She had to work very hard for a very small
remuneration, for the competition was very great, and without lowering
her prices to nearly one-half, she could not have obtained employment at
all. She could easily have procured a service as a nurse-girl or
housemaid in a gentleman's family, but the novels she had read during
her residence with Mrs. Makewell, the milliner, had filled her head with
foolish notions of her own beauty and consequence, and given her ideas
far above her humble station, quite unfitting her to submit patiently to
the control of others. Besides being vain of a very lovely face, she was
very fond of dress. A clever hand at her business, she contrived to give
a finish and style to the homely materials she made, and which fitted so
well her slender and gracefully-formed person.

Her love of admiration induced her to lay out all her scanty earnings in
adorning herself, instead of reserving a portion to help to provide
their daily food. Her sewing was chiefly done at home, and she attended
upon her mother and sister, and prepared their frugal meals during the
absence of Mary, whose situation in the "Brig's Foot" she considered a
perfect degradation.

Such was Sophy Grimshawe, and there are many like her in the world.
Ashamed of poverty, in which there is no real disgrace, and repining at
the subordinate situation in which she found herself placed, she made no
mental effort to improve her condition by frugal and patient industry,
and a cheerful submission to the Divine will. She considered her lot
hard, the dispensations of Providence cruel and unjust. She could not
see why others should be better off than herself; that women with half
her personal attractions should be permitted to ride in their carriages,
while she had to wear coarse shoes and walk through the dust. She
regarded every well-dressed female who passed the door with feelings of
envy and hatred, which embittered her life, and formed the most painful
feature in the poverty she loathed