“Nonsense!—that is my affair.”
“I should like to have my own way in this matter,” said Flora, leaning her hand upon his shoulder, and trying to win him into compliance by sundry little caresses. “I know, John, that I am in the right.”
“And those who love you, Flora, and wish to spare you fatigue and discomfort, are in the wrong. Is it not so?”
This last speech silenced his wife, but did not convince her that she was wrong. Flora, as my readers must long ago have discovered, was no heroine of romance, but a veritable human creature, subject to all the faults and weaknesses incidental to her sex. She wished to have her own way, and was ready to cry that she could not get it. Yet, had her advice been acted upon, she would have been spared a great deal of sorrow and mortification, which greatly embittered the first months of her sojourn in a foreign land.
Persons emigrating to Canada cannot be guilty of a greater blunder than that of taking out servants with them, which is sure to end in loss and disappointment; for they no sooner set foot upon the North American shores, than they suddenly become possessed with an ultra republican spirit. The chrysalis has burst its dingy shell; they are no longer caterpillars, but gay butterflies, prepared to bask in the sun-blaze of popular rights. Ask such a domestic to blacken your shoes, clean a knife, or fetch a pail of water from the well at the door, and ten to one she will turn upon you as fierce as a lioness, and bid you do it yourself. If you are so imprudent as to insist on being obeyed, she will tell you to hire another in her place; she is sure of twenty situations as good as yours, to-morrow.
She is right in her assertion. Her insolent rejection of your commands would not stand at all in her way of procuring a new place. And although cleaning a lady’s shoes, and bringing in a pail of water, or an armful of wood, is by no means such disgusting employment as scouring greasy pots and scrubbing the floors, she has been told that the former is degrading work not fit for a woman, and she is now in a free country, and will not submit to degradation.
The mistress, who in England was termed the dear lady, now degenerates into the woman, while persons in their own class, and even beggars seeking for alms are addressed as Ma’am and Sir. How particular they are in enforcing these titles from one another; how persevering in depriving their employers of any term of respect! One would imagine that they not only considered themselves on an equality, but that ignorance and vulgarity made them vastly superior. It is highly amusing to watch from a distance these self-made ladies and gentlemen sporting their borrowed plumes.
Some years after she had been settled in Canada, Flora picked up a note which had been thrown out as waste paper, and which was addressed to the father of a very dirty, dishonest girl, whom she had dismissed from her service for sundry petty frauds, a few weeks before. It was addressed to Edward Brady, Esqre., and ran as follows:—
“Honoured Sir,
“The company of self and lady, is respectfully solicited at a contribution ball, to be given next Thursday evening, at the Three King’s Inn. Dancing to commence at eight o’clock precisely.