to my mother's support, "I do not wish that my little girl should be a
lady's maid."

"And why not, pray?" said her ladyship, rather angrily.

"Why, you see, your ladyship, my daughter is, after all, only the
daughter of a poor Greenwich pensioner; and, although she has been so
far pretty well educated, yet I wishes her not to forget her low
situation in life, and ladies' maids do get so confounded proud
('specially those who have the fortune to be ladies' ladies' maids),
that I don't wish that she should take a situation which would make her
forget herself and her poor old pensioner of a father; and, begging your
honor's pardon, that is the real state of the case, my lady."

What my mother felt at this slap at her I do not know, but certain it is
that she was satisfied with my father taking the responsibility of
refusal on his own shoulders, and she therefore continued: "I often have
told Mr. Saunders how happy I was when under your ladyship's protection,
and what a fortunate person I considered myself; but my husband has
always had such an objection to my girl being brought up to it that I
have (of course, my lady, as it is my duty to him to do so) given up my
own wishes from the first; indeed, my lady, had I not known that my
little girl was not to go to service, I never should have ventured to
have called her Virginia, my lady."

"What, then, do you intend her for?" said Sir Hercules to my father.
"You don't mean to bring her up as a lady, do you?"

"No, your honor, she's but a pensioner's daughter, and I wishes her to
be humble, as she ought to be; so I've been thinking that something in
the millinery line, or perhaps--"

"As a governess, my lady," interrupted my mother, with a courtesy.

"That will make her humble enough, at all events," observed the bald
gentleman in black, with a smile.

"I admit," replied Lady Hercules, "that your having given my name to
your little girl is a strong reason for her not going into service; but
there are many expenses attending the education necessary for a young
person as governess."

Here my mother entered into an explanation of how Virginia had been
educated--an education which she should not have dreamed of giving, only
that her child bore her ladyship's name, etc. My mother employed her
usual flattery and humility, so as to reconcile her ladyship to the
idea; who was the more inclined when she discovered that she was not
likely to be put to any expense in her patr