Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/45

 me a good servant, and that I should live at the castle under the care of Jackson. Seeing me hesitate, she looked angry, and asked me if I was too proud to be a servant under Jackson?" "O no," I cried, "I would be happy to do anything for Mrs Jackson, but I cannot leave my mother. She is not able to leave her bed, and I do every thing for her; she has no one but me to help her."

"It is very true, my lady," said the housekeeper; and she then gave such an account of all I did for my mother, as seemed to astonish the old lady, who, in a gentler tone, said, that I was a good girl, a very good girl; and should come to live with her when my mother died, which could be at no great distance. The possibility of my mother's death had never before occurred to me; and when my lady put half-a-crown into my hand, which she said was to serve for earnest, 1 looked at it with horror, considering it as making a sort of bargain for my mother's life.