feels that its shadow is creeping
fast over the frontier of her own freedom. Nay, suppose the conquest
achieved, and that they themselves are reduced to the veriest serfdom,
none the less will they strive to goad other hereditary bondswomen into
striking the blow. Is it not known that steady old "machiners," broken
for years to double harness, will encourage and countenance their
"flippant" progeny in kicking over the traces? How otherwise could the
name of mother-in-law, on the stage and in divers domestic circles, have
become a synonym for firebrand? Look at your wife's maid, for instance.
She will spend two thirds of her wages and the product of many silk
dresses ("scarcely soiled") in furnishing that objectionable and
disreputable suitor of hers with funds for his extravagance. He has
beggared two or three of her acquaintance already, under the same flimsy
pretense of intended marriage, that scarcely deludes poor Abigail; she
has sore misgivings as to her own fate. Alternately he bullies and
cajoles, but all the while she knows that he is lying, deliberately and
incessantly, yet she never remonstrates or complains. It is true that,
if you pass the door of her little room late into the night, you will
probably go to bed haunted by the sound of low, dreary weeping; but it
would be worse than useless to argue with her about her folly; she
cherishes her noisome and ill-favored weed as if it were the fairest of
fragrant flowers, and will not be persuaded to throw it aside. Well, if
you could listen to that same long-suffering and soft-hearted young
female, in her place in the subterranean Upper House, when the conduct
of "Master" (especially as regards Foreign Affairs) is being canvassed;
the fluency and virulence of her anathemas would almost take your breath
away. Even that dear old housekeeper--who nursed you, and loves you
better than any of her own children--when she would suggest an excuse or
denial of the alleged peccadilloes, is borne away and overwhelmed by the
abusive torrent, and can at last only grumble her dissent. Very few
women, of good birth and education, make _confidantes_ nowadays of their
personal attendants; and the race of "Miggs" is chiefly confined to the
class in which Dickens has placed it, if it is not extinct utterly. But
there is a season--while the brush passes lightly and lingeringly over
the long trailing "back hair"--when a hint, an allusion, or an
insinuation, cleverly placed, may go far t