"I have, certainly, no ingratitude to complain of from Paulina. I have had hard work to persuade her to leave me, and she consents only on condition that I permit her to return if she cannot learn to content herself away from us."[1]
"What a pity!" said Mrs. Ardley, whom the common way of looking at such subjects seemed to have rendered incapable of seeing them in Mrs. Hyde's point of view, "what a pity she did not keep to plain sewing—could you not prevent her learning dressmaking."
"Certainly. But a poor girl has it hard enough getting her living by her needle at the most profitable work; so I made her avail herself of every opportunity of learning of my dressmaker."
"Do you never consider yourself?"
"Yes, Anne, most effectively. I most certainly benefit myself by promoting the improvement of those under my care. I have often wondered that housekeepers in the country do not more frequently secure help by taking children 'to bring up.' Young children may always be obtained; and care and kindness, while they are too young to render much service, is amply paid afterward. A child taken from a vicious family, or from a shiftless, ignorant, or overburdened mother, may thus be saved not only as far as concerns the self-preserving virtues that are brought into action in this world, but, reaping the fruits of a moral and religious education, she may be saved in a higher sense. In getting new domestics I prefer young
- ↑ We have known Mrs. Hyde's principle acted on, where the disinterestedness and the sacrifice were much greater than in her case.
