The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1866-03-16

that would have borne my dear from
me has Wondered away at the bottom
of the ocean somewhere. And / think
my wedding-ring is like to outlast us
all, for | have it yet, and l shall be
ninety tomorrow.
Ninety its a good old age, and it
can t be long now before / meet Evan,
and the rest, in Heaven
A FAMILIAR STYLE OF SERVANTS. By
Mrs. H. b. Store. She is rather deli
cate and genteel looking, and you may
know from the arrangement of her
hair what the last mode is of dispos-
ing OF rats and waterfalls She has n
lace bonnet with roses, o silk mantilla,
silk dress trimmed with velvet, a
white skirt with sixteen tucks and an
embroidered edge, pair Of cloth gait
els, underneath which are pair OF
stockings without feet, the only pain
in her possession. She has no under
linen, and sleeps at night in the work
ing clothes she wears in the day. She
never seems to have in her outfit eth
er comb, brush, or tooth brush of her
own, -neither needles, thread, scis-
sors, nor pins; her money, when she
has any, is spent on more important
articles, such as the lace bonnet or
silk mantilla, or the rats and water
fall that glorify her head When she
wishes to sew, she borrows what is
needful of convenient next neighbor;
and If she gets place in a family as
second girl, she expects to subsist in
these respects by borrowing of the
better appointed servants, or helping
herself from the family..stores.
She expects, of course, tho very
highest wages, if she condescends to
live out, and by help of trim outside
appearance and the many vacancies
that are continually occurring in
households, she gets places, where
her object is to do as little of the duty
assigned as possible, to hurry TIN ough
with her performances, put on her
fine clothes, and go a-gadding. She
is on free and easy terms with all the
men she meets, and ready at jests and
repartee, sometimes far from seemly
Her time OF service III any one place
lasts indifferently from fortnight to
two or three months, when she takes
her wages, and buys her parasol in
the latest style, and goes back to the
intelligence office. In the different
families where she has lived she has
been told hundred times the pro-
prieties of household life; how to
make beds, arrange rooms, wash Chi
ma, glass, and silver, and set tables:
but her habitual rule is to try in each
place how small and how poor service
will be accepted. When she finds
that less Will not do she gives more.
When the mistress follows her con-
stantly, and shows an energetic deter
mination to be well served she shows
that she can serve well; but the mo-
ment such attention relaxes, she slides
back again. She is rs destructive to q
house as tile; the very spirit of
wastefulness is in her; she cracks the
china, dents the silver, stops the wa
ter pipe with rubbish; and when she
is gone, there is generally sum equal
to half her wages to be expended in
repairing the effects of her careless
ness. And yet there is one thing to
be said of her; she is quite as careful
Of her employers things as of her own.
The full amount of her mischiefs Of
ten does not appear at once, as she
is glib of tongue, adroit i'll apologies.
and lies with as much adroitness and
as little thought of conscience as a
blackbird chatters. 1t is difficult for
people who have been trained from
childhood III the school of verities,--
who have been lectured for even the
shadow of prevarication, and shut up
in disgrace for lie, till truth becomes
a habit of their souls, lit is very diff
cult for people so educated to under
stand how to get on with those who
never speak the truth except by mere
accident, who assert any and every
thing that comes into their heads with
all the assurance and all the energy of
perfect verify.
What becomes of this girl? She
finds means, by begging, borrowing,
living out, to keep herself extremely
trim and airy for certain length of
time, till rats and waterfalls, the lace
hat and parasol, and the glib tongue,
have done their work in making q fool
of some honest young mechanic who
earns three dollars day. She mar
ries him with no higher object than to
have somebody to earn money for her
to spend.
That is one ending of her career;
the other is on the street, in the haunts
of vice, in prison, in drunkenness, and
death.
Whence come these girls ? They
are as numerous es yellow butterflies
in autumn; they Autter up to the city
from the country; they grow up from
mothers who ran the same sort of
career before them; and the reason
why in the end they fall out of all rep
utabla employment and starye on
poor wages, is, that they become phys
ically, mentally, and morally incapable
of rendering any service which society
will think worth paying for.