made a curtsy, and she took my
work out of my hand, looked on it, and said it was very well; then she
took up one of the hands. 'Nay,' says she, 'the child may come to be a
gentlewoman for aught anybody knows; she has a gentlewoman's hand,'
says she. This pleased me mightily, you may be sure; but Mrs. Mayoress
did not stop there, but giving me my work again, she put her hand in
her pocket, gave me a shilling, and bid me mind my work, and learn to
work well, and I might be a gentlewoman for aught she knew.

Now all this while my good old nurse, Mrs. Mayoress, and all the rest
of them did not understand me at all, for they meant one sort of thing
by the word gentlewoman, and I meant quite another; for alas! all I
understood by being a gentlewoman was to be able to work for myself,
and get enough to keep me without that terrible bugbear going to
service, whereas they meant to live great, rich and high, and I know
not what.

Well, after Mrs. Mayoress was gone, her two daughters came in, and they
called for the gentlewoman too, and they talked a long while to me, and
I answered them in my innocent way; but always, if they asked me
whether I resolved to be a gentlewoman, I answered Yes. At last one of
them asked me what a gentlewoman was? That puzzled me much; but,
however, I explained myself negatively, that it was one that did not go
to service, to do housework. They were pleased to be familiar with me,
and like my little prattle to them, which, it seems, was agreeable
enough to them, and they gave me money too.

As for my money, I gave it all to my mistress-nurse, as I called her,
and told her she should have all I got for myself when I was a
gentlewoman, as well as now. By this and some other of my talk, my old
tutoress began to understand me about what I meant by being a
gentlewoman, and that I understood by it no more than to be able to get
my bread by my own work; and at last she asked me whether it was not so.

I told her, yes, and insisted on it, that to do so was to be a
gentlewoman; 'for,' says I, 'there is such a one,' naming a woman that
mended lace and washed the ladies' laced-heads; 'she,' says I, 'is a
gentlewoman, and they call her madam.'

'Poor child,' says my good old nurse, 'you may soon be such a
gentlewoman as that, for she is a person of ill fame, and has had two
or three bastards.'

I did not understand anything of that; but I answered, 'I am sure they
call her madam, and she does not go