"'Annie,' said my mother, 'this won't do. You must go out and work for your living: you cannot stay at home and starve.'
"'And you, Mother?'
"'God will take care of me, my child. I cannot leave your father. I must work for him: he is my husband; and, in spite of this dreadful vice, I love him still.'
"Her constancy and patient endurance under a thousand privations was wonderful.
"I was reckoned a very pretty girl: all the neighbours said so, and I thought so myself. They were sorry for our altered circumstances. They respected my mother; and, though they blamed my father, they pitied him as well as blamed (he had been a general favourite before he became lost to himself and us,) and did all in their power to assist my mother in her distress. One of these sympathising friends was the dressmaker employed by the great lady of the parish. This woman got me into service as waiting-maid to the young ladies at the Grange.
"Miss Elinor Landsmeer was on the eve of marriage with Mr. Carlos; and she used to talk to me a great deal about her lover, while I was dressing her hair of a night. 'He was so handsome,' she said, 'so good-natured and merry! He danced and sang so well, rode so gallantly, and was such a capital shot. He was admired and courted by all the ladies; and she considered herself the most fortunate girl in the world to have secured the affections of such a charming young man. And then, Annie, besides all these advantages of person and manners, he is so rich—so immensely rich, he can indulge me in my taste for pictures and books, and dress, without ruining himself. Oh, I shall be so happy—so happy!'—and then she would clap her little white hands, and laugh in childish glee. And very young she was, and very pretty too,—not a showy sort of beauty, but soft and gentle,—not gay and dashing, like some of her elder sisters. They were all engaged to men of rank and fashion; and they laughed at Miss Elinor for marrying an untitled man. But she was so much in love with Mr. Carlos, that she was as happy as a lark.
"When I saw Mr. Carlos, I thought she was, indeed, a fortunate young lady; and I could not help envying her the handsome rich lover who was so soon to make her his wife.
"I always liked waiting on my pretty young lady; but I felt a double pleasure in doing so when Mr. Carlos was by. He often joked Miss Elinor on my good looks, and would ask her 'if she was not jealous of her pretty waiting-maid?'
"'Oh, no,' she would laughingly reply. 'I am like you, Walter,—I don't like ugly people about me. Annie is as good as she looks. Cannot you find a good husband for her among your tenants?'
"'I'll do my best,' said he, in the same bantering tone. 'By the by, Annie—if that is your name—what do you think of my valet, Mr. Noah Cotton?'