Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/53

 me, for she was to boast to my lady at night of what I had performed in the day, I never had a minute's time to play; but though such close confinement was not good for my health, it was good for giving me a habit of application, the most essential of all habits for those who are to earn their bread.

By the time I was twelve years old, Mrs Jackson found me so useful an assistant, that I should probably have been fit for nothing but needle- work all my life long, had not my lady been so pleased with my performance, as to resolve to employ me in assisting her in the embroidering of a set of chair-covers, which were to be done in a fancy way of her own contrivance. I now sat all the day in her dressing-room, and had nothing to complain of except hunger; but of my being hungry my lady never thought, though she must have known that I often fasted nine, and sometimes ten hours at a time; for I never durst rise from my