ere stands also, under stout lock and key, the
mighty mystery,--the box,--containing, among other things, her
clothes, two or three song-books, consisting of nineteen for the
penny; sundry Tragedies at a halfpenny the sheet; the "Whole Nature of
Dreams Laid Open," together with the "Fortune-teller" and the "Account
of the Ghost of Mrs. Veal;" the "Story of the Beautiful Zoa" "who was
cast away on a desart island, showing how," etc.; some half-crowns in
a purse, including pieces of country-money, with the good Countess of
Coventry on one of them, riding naked on the horse; a silver penny
wrapped up in cotton by itself; a crooked sixpence, given her before
she came to town, and the giver of which has either forgotten or been
forgotten by her, she is not sure which;--two little enamel boxes,
with looking-glass in the lids, one of them a fairing, the other "a
Trifle from Margate;" and lastly, various letters, square and ragged,
and directed in all sorts of spellings, chiefly with little letters
for capitals. One of them, written by a girl who went to a day-school,
is directed "Miss."

In her manners, the Maid-servant sometimes imitates her young
mistress; she puts her hair in papers, cultivates a shape, and
occasionally contrives to be out of spirits. But her own character and
condition overcome all sophistications of this sort: her shape,
fortified by the mop and scrubbing-brush, will make its way; and
exercise keeps her healthy and cheerful. From the same cause her
temper is good; though she gets into little heats when a stranger is
over-saucy, or when she is told not to go so heavily down stairs, or
when some unthinking person goes up her wet stairs with dirty
shoes,--or when she is called away often from dinner; neither does she
much like to be seen scrubbing the street-door steps of a morning; and
sometimes she catches herself saying, "Drat that butcher," but
immediately adds, "God forgive me." The tradesmen indeed, with their
compliments and arch looks, seldom give her cause to complain. The
milkman bespeaks her good-humour for the day with "Come, pretty
maids:"--then follow the butcher, the baker, the oilman, etc., all
with their several smirks and little loiterings; and when she goes to
the shops herself, it is for her the grocer pulls down his string from
its roller with more than the ordinary whirl, and tosses his parcel
into a tie.

Thus pass the mornings between working, and singing, and giggling, and
grumbli