I listened to my Aunt Lina's talk with, it must be confessed, indifference, mingled with a little sullenness, and quieted my impatience by inward ejaculations--a vast deal of good do those inward conversations produce, such mollifiers of the temper are they. "So, so," said I to myself, "my Aunt Lina's paragon is a '_lady-help_.' Of all kinds 'of help' the very one I have endeavored most to avoid; it is such a nondescript kind of creature that lady-help;" and as I soliloquized, recollections of specimens of the kind I had been afflicted with, came in sad array before my memory--maids with slip-shod French kid slippers, that had never been large enough for their feet--love-locks on either side of their cheeks, twirled up during the day in brown curl-papers--faded lawn dresses, with dangling flounces and tattered edging; then such sentimental entreaties that I should not make them answer the door-bell if Ike, the black boy, might happen to be away on some errand, or expose them to the rude gaze of the multitude in the market-house; and I groaned in spirit as I thought what a troublesome creature the "lady-help" was to manage. During this sympathizing colloquy with myself, my aunt went on expatiating most eloquently on the merits of her _protege_, Lizzie Hall. Some pause occurring--for want of breath, I really believe, on my aunt's side--good-breeding seemed to require a remark from me, and I faltered out some objection as to the accommodations a city household afforded for a person of Lizzie Hall's condition. "Of course," said my aunt, "she will not wish to sit at the same table with the black servants you may happen to have; but Lizzie will not cause you any trouble on the score of accommodations, I'll answer for it, Enna; she is too sensible a person not to fully understand the difference between town and country habits--and if you say so, I will engage her for you when I return to Rockland."