“Her attention to personal neatness,” says a lady who is my informant, “was very great; her face seemed always as if it were just washed, and with her bright hair neatly combed underneath her snowwhite cap, a smooth white apron, and her gown and handkerchief carefully put on, she used to look very comely. After a year or two, she married the serving man, who, as he was retained in his situation, was obliged to take a house as near his place as possible. The cottages in the neighbourhood were of the most wretched kind, mere hovels built of rough stones and covered with ragged thatch; there were few even of these, so there was no choice, and they were obliged to be content with the first that was vacant, which was in the most retired situation. After they had been married about two years, I happened to be walking past one of these miserable cottages, and as the door was open, I had the curiosity to enter. I found it was the home of the servant I have been describing. But what a change had come over her! Her face was dirty, and her tangled hair hung over her eyes. Her cap, though of good materials, was ill washed and slovenly put on. Her whole dress, though apparently good and serviceable, was very untidy, and looked dirty and slatternly; everything indeed about her seemed wretched and neglected, (except her little child,) and she appeared very discontented. She seemed aware of the change there must be in her appearance since I had last seen her, for she immediately began to complain of her house. The wet came in at the door of the _only room_, and when it rained, through every part of the roof also, except just over the hearth-stone; large drops fell upon her as she lay in bed, or as she was working at the window: in short, she had found it impossible to keep things in order, so had gradually ceased to make any exertions. Her condition had been borne down by the condition of the house. Then her husband was dissatisfied with his home and with her; his visits became less frequent, and if he had been a day labourer, and there had been a beer-shop or a public-house, the preference of that to his home would have been inevitable, and in the one instance would have presented an example of a multitude of cases. “She was afterwards, however, removed to a new cottage, which was water-tight, and had some conveniences, and was built close to the road, which her former mistress and all her friends must constantly pass along. She soon resumed, in a great degree, her former good habits, but still there was a little of the _dawdle_ left about her; the remains of the dispiritedness caused by her former very unfavourable circumstances.”