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 nothing more of the Simsons than that they were what are called respectable people. Lucy's new mistress was from one of the Eastern states. Her husband was a thriving mechanic, and she was, in her little sphere, an "ambitious woman," what is called, in vulgar parlance, among country housewives, a driver. She had certain aims in life—the first was riches; the second that her children should rise far above their parents' level. She well understood the means of achieving the first—the second is somewhat more difficult.

Aurelia, her eldest girl, was eighteen, with full dark eyes, white teeth, and a profusion of brown hair, that was dangling in half a quire of curl-papers in the morning and depending from half a dozen combs in the evening. She had, moreover, a fair, pale complexion, and a very slight person, the result of indolence, indulgence, and mismanagement. These attributes were valued by herself and her mother as giving her what they called "a genteel look." Alas for such gentility! Mrs. Simson, reckoning an exemption from manual labour as the first requisite for a lady (that charmed word), permitted Miss Aurelia to dawdle about all the morning in a greasy black silk, with a novel, or a bit of soiled muslin embroidery in her hand, while she was in the kitchen overworking herself and her handmaid Lucy.

Lucy was maid of all work. She rose early and worked late, it being an oft-repeated aphorism of Mrs. Simson, that "young help should be up betimes." The natural corollary from these premises would seem to be, that "young help should go to bed betimes." Not so reasoned Dame Simson.