On going down into the kitchen to prepare the dinner, Mrs. Burgess really seemed to me to be a very superior sort of body; and I thought that she was one of the best disposed and most honest of women, until I found her to be quite the contrary; for at first I really felt interested in the poor thing, on account of her being the mother of such a large family, and all by herself without a husband. I was quite pleased to hear the good woman go on as she did all that day, continually telling me that servants were such a bad lot, and that nothing was good enough for them, and how little gentlemen thought of what we poor women had to undergo for their sakes. And she likewise told me the whole history of how shamefully Mr. Burgess, who drove a cab, had behaved towards her--never treating her as he ought to have done--though she had always been a good wife to him, (the wretch,) and had seldom or never flown in his face, (the brute,)--that her life had been one continued struggle with him from morning to night, she might say, and that after the hard battles they had had together, his going to New Orleans under the disguise of coming back in a few weeks, she must say was a return that she never expected. Upon which I remarked, that for Mr. Burgess, to run away to America in the way he had done, certainly did appear to me to be going a little too far. And then she was so kind as to hope that Mr. Sk--n--st--n would never treat me in the same way, although, as she very truly said, she was afraid that the men were all alike, and that they really were not fit to be trusted out of your sight for two days together.