to support your skirts properly--draggle-tails! I see you
taking the morning's milk from the hearty milkman, or going an errand
in your apron and a coat too small for you, or in your mistress's or
mother's cast-off jacket, out at the seams, puffy-sleeved, years behind
the fashion and awry at the shoulders because it is too big. I see your
floppety hat which you cannot pin down tightly to your hair, because
there isn't enough of it;--your courageous attempts to be prettier than
you are, or else your carelessness from overmuch drudgery; your
coquettish and ugly gestures mixed.

I picture your life. Are you thinking of your work, or are you dreaming
of the finery you will buy with your month's wages; the ribbons, the
lace, or the lovely grown-up hat? Are you thinking of what he said, and
she said, and you said, you answered, you did? Are you dreaming of
_your_ young man? Are you building queer castles in the air? Are
you lonely in your dingy kitchen? Have you time and leisure to be
lonely?

I follow you into your kitchen, with its faint odour of burnt grease
(your carelessness) and of cockroaches, and its whiffs from the
scullery sink, and a love-story that scents your life, hidden away in a
drawer. I hear your mistress's bell jingle under the stairs. You must
go to bed, and sleep, and be up early, before it is either light or
warm, to work for her; you must be kept in good condition like a cart
horse or a donkey; you must earn, earn well, your so many silver pounds
a year.

In mind, I follow you also into your little bedroom under the roof,
with its cracked water-jug that matches neither the basin or the
soap-dish, and its boards with a ragged scrap of carpet on them, and
your tin box in the corner; and the light of the moon or street lamp
coming in at the window and casting shadows on the sloping whitewashed
ceiling; and your guttered candle. What will you try on to-night? A
hat, or a dress, or the two-and-eleven-three-farthing blouse? Shift the
candle. Show yourself to the looking-glass. A poke here and a pull
there--and now put everything away carefully in the box under the bed,
and go to sleep.

Though I say that I follow you up to your attic, and watch you and see
you go to sleep, you need not blush or giggle or snap. I would not do
you any harm; your eyes would plague me. And besides, I do not entirely
fancy you. You are not fresh. You are boxed up too much. But I trust
that some lusty careless fellow, regardl