, on condition of her receiving but half the wages usually given, took her as a servant of all work.
In romances, and in some plays, there are scenes of dark and unwholesome mines, wherein the labourer works during the brightest day by the aid of artificial light. There are in London kitchens equally dismal, though not quite so much exposed to damp and noxious vapours. In one of these, under ground, hid from the cheerful light of the sun, poor Hannah was doomed to toil from morning till night, subjected to the command

of a dissatisfied mistress; who, not estimating as she ought, the misery incurred by serving her, constantly threatened her servants "with a dismission;" at which the unthinking wretches would tremble merely from the sound of the words—for, to have reflected—to have considered what their purport was—"to be released from a dungeon, relieved from continual upbraidings, and vile drudgery," must have been a subject of rejoicing—and yet, because these good tidings were delivered as a menace, custom had made the poor creatures fearful of the consequence. So, death being described to children as a disaster, even poverty and shame will start from it with affright; when, had it been pictured (as it is) a good; it would be feared by few, and many, many would welcome it with gladness.
All the care of Hannah to please, her fear of offending, her toilsome days, her patience, her submission, could not prevail on her mistress to retain her one hour after by chance she had heard, "that Hannah was the mother of a child; that

she wished it should be kept a secret; and that she stole out now and then to visit him."
Hannah, with swimming eyes and an almost breaking heart, left a place—where, to have lived one hour, would have plunged any fine lady in the deepest grief.


HANNAH was driven from service to service—her deficiency in the knowledge of a mere drudge, or her lost character, pursued her wherever she went; and at length, becoming wholly destitute, she gladly accepted a place where the latter misfortune was not the least objection.
In one of those habitations where continual misery is dressed in continual smiles; where extreme of poverty is concealed by extreme of show; where wine dispenses mirth only by dispensing forgetfulness; and where female beauty is so cheap, so complying, that while it inveigles it disgusts the man of pleasure;—in one of those houses, to attend upon its wretched inhabitants, Hannah was hired.—Her feelings of rectitude submitted to those of hunger—Her principles