by Daniel Defoe
to be a gentlewoman? What!will you do it by your fingers' end?'
'Yes,' says I again, very innocently.
'Why, what can you earn?' says she; 'what can you get at your work?'
'Threepence,' said I, 'when I spin, and fourpence when I work plainwork.'
'Alas! poor gentlewoman,' said she again, laughing, 'what will that dofor thee?'
'It will keep me,' says I, 'if you will let me live with you.' Andthis I said in such a poor petitioning tone, that it made the poorwoman's heart yearn to me, as she told me afterwards.
'But,' says she, 'that will not keep you and buy you clothes too; andwho must buy the little gentlewoman clothes?' says she, and smiled allthe while at me.
'I will work harder, then,' says I, 'and you shall have it all.'
'Poor child! it won't keep you,' says she; 'it will hardly keep you invictuals.'
'Then I will have no victuals,' says I, again very innocently; 'let mebut live with you.'
'Why, can you live without victuals?' says she.
'Yes,' again says I, very much like a child, you may be sure, and stillI cried heartily.
I had no policy in all this; you may easily see it was all nature; butit was joined with so much innocence and so much passion that, inshort, it set the good motherly creature a-weeping too, and she criedat last as fast as I did, and then took me and led me out of theteaching-room. 'Come,' says she, 'you shan't go to service; you shalllive with me'; and this pacified me for the present.
Some time after this, she going to wait on the Mayor, and talking ofsuch things as belonged to her business, at last my story came up, andmy good nurse told Mr. Mayor the whole tale. He was so pleased withit, that he would call his lady and his two daughters to hear it, andit made mirth enough among them, you may be sure.
However, not a week had passed over, but on a sudden comes Mrs.Mayoress and her two daughters to the house to see my old nurse, and tosee her school and the children. When they had looked about them alittle, 'Well, Mrs. ----,' says the Mayoress to my nurse, 'and praywhich is the little lass that intends to be a gentlewoman?' I heardher, and I was terribly frighted at first, though I did not know whyneither; but Mrs. Mayoress comes up to me. 'Well, miss,' says she,'and what are you at work upon?' The word miss was a language that hadhardly been heard of in our school, and I wondered what sad name it wasshe called me. However, I stood up, made a curtsy, and she took mywork out of my hand, looked on it, and said it was very well; then shetook up one of the hands. 'Nay,' says she, 'the child may come to be agentlewoman for aught anybody knows; she has a gentlewoman's hand,'says she. This pleased me mightily, you may be sure; but Mrs. Mayoressdid not stop there, but giving me my work again, she put her hand inher pocket, gave me a shilling, and bid me mind my work, and learn towork well, and I might be a gentlewoman for aught she knew.
Now all this while my good old nurse, Mrs. Mayoress, and all the restof them did not understand me at all, for they meant one sort of thingby the word gentlewoman, and I meant quite another; for alas! all Iunderstood by being a gentlewoman was to be able to work for myself,and get enough to keep me without that terrible bugbear going toservice, whereas they meant to live great, rich and high, and I knownot what.
Well, after Mrs. Mayoress was gone, her two daughters came in, and theycalled for the gentlewoman too, and they talked a long while to me, andI answered them in my innocent way; but always, if they asked mewhether I resolved to be a gentlewoman, I answered Yes. At last one ofthem asked me what a gentlewoman was? That puzzled me much; but,however, I explained myself negatively, that it was one that did not goto service, to do housework. They were pleased to be familiar with me,and like my little prattle to them, which, it seems, was agreeableenough 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 agentlewoman, as well as now. By this and some other of my talk, my oldtutoress began to understand me about what I meant by being agentlewoman, and that I understood by it no more than to be able to getmy 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 agentlewoman; 'for,' says I, 'there is such a one,' naming a woman thatmended lace and washed the ladies' laced-heads; 'she,' says I, 'is agentlewoman, and they call her madam.'
'Poor child,' says my good old nurse, 'you may soon be such agentlewoman as that, for she is a person of ill fame, and has had twoor three bastards.'
I did not understand anything of that; but I answered, 'I am sure theycall her madam, and she does not go to service nor do housework'; andtherefore I insisted that she was a gentlewoman, and I would be such agentlewoman as that.
The ladies were told all this again, to be sure, and they madethemselves merry with it, and every now and then the young ladies, Mr.Mayor's daughters, would come and see me, and ask where the littlegentlewoman was, which made me not a little proud of myself.
This held a great while, and I was often visited by these young ladies,and sometimes they brought others with them; so that I was known by italmost all over the town.
I was now about ten years old, and began to look a little womanish, forI was mighty grave and humble, very mannerly, and as I had often heardthe ladies say I was pretty, and would be a very handsome woman, so youmay be sure that hearing them say so made me not a little proud.However, that pride had no ill effect upon me yet; only, as they oftengave me money, and I gave it to my old nurse, she, honest woman, was sojust to me as to lay it all out again for me, and gave me head-dresses,and linen, and gloves, and ribbons, and I went very neat, and alwaysclean; for that I would do, and if I had rags on, I would always beclean, or else I would dabble them in water myself; but, I say, my goodnurse, when I had money given me, very honestly laid it out for me, andwould always tell the ladies this or that was bought with their money;and this made them oftentimes give me more, till at last I was indeedcalled upon by the magistrates, as I understood it, to go out toservice; but then I was come to be so good a workwoman myself, and theladies were so kind to me, that it was plain I could maintainmyself--that is to say, I could earn as much for my nurse as she wasable by it to keep me--so she told them that if they would give herleave, she would keep the gentlewoman, as she called me, to be herassistant and teach the children, which I was very well able to do; forI was very nimble at my work, and had a good hand with my needle,though I was yet very young.
But the kindness of the ladies of the town did not end here, for whenthey came to understand that I was no more maintained by the publicallowance as before, they gave me money oftener than formerly; and as Igrew up they brought me work to do for them, such as linen to make, andlaces to mend, and heads to dress up, and not only paid me for doingthem, but even taught me how to do them; so that now I was agentlewoman indeed, as I understood that word, I not only found myselfclothes and paid my nurse for my keeping, but got money in my pockettoo beforehand.
The ladies also gave me clothes frequently of their own or theirchildren's; some stockings, some petticoats, some gowns, some onething, some another, and these my old woman managed for me like a meremother, and kept them for me, obliged me to mend them, and turn themand twist them to the best advantage, for she was a rare housewife.
At last one of the ladies took so much fancy to me that she would haveme home to her house, for a month, she said, to be among her daughters.
Now, though this was exceeding kind in her, yet, as my old good womansaid to her, unless she resolved to keep me for good and all, she woulddo the little gentlewoman more harm than good. 'Well,' says the lady,'that's true; and therefore I'll only take her home for a week, then,that I may see how my daughters and she agree together, and how I likeher temper, and then I'll tell you more; and in the meantime, ifanybody comes to see her as they used to do, you may only tell them youhave sent her out to my house.'
This was prudently managed enough, and I went to the lady's house; butI w
as so pleased there with the young ladies, and they so pleased withme, that I had enough to do to come away, and they were as unwilling topart with me.
However, I did come away, and lived almost a year more with my honestold woman, and began now to be very helpful to her; for I was almostfourteen years old, was tall of my age, and looked a little womanish;but I had such a taste of genteel living at the lady's house that I wasnot so easy in my old quarters as I used to be, and I thought it wasfine to be a gentlewoman indeed, for I had quite other notions of agentlewoman now than I had before; and as I thought, I say, that it wasfine to be a gentlewoman, so I loved to be among gentlewomen, andtherefore I longed to be
