ABSTRACT
When first I saw Mary, we resided near London – it may now be some ten years ago (I believe a married lady may "recollect" for a period of ten years, although it is not exacdy pleasant to remember for a longer time); she was tall, flat, and bony, exceedingly clean and neat in her dress, and yet attended minutely to the costume of her country: her cloth petticoat was always sufEciently short to display her homely worsted stockings; her gown was not spun out to any useless extension, but was met half way by her blue check apron – the "gown-tail" 551 being always pinned in three-corner fashion by a huge corking-pin; her cap was invariably decorated by a narrow lace border "rale thread" (for she abhored counterfeits), and secured on her head by a broad green riband. But Mary's dress, strange as it was, never took off the attention from the expression of her extraordinary face; it was marvellous to look upon; and, had it been formed of cast-iron, could not have been more firm or immovable. Her forehead was high, and projected over large brown eyes, that wandered about unceasingly from corner to corner; her nose stiff, tightly cased in its parchment skin; cheek-bones – high and projecting; and such a mouth! She talked unceasingly; but the lips moved directly up and down, like those of an eloquent bull-frog, never relaxing into a simper, much less a smile: even when she shed tears (for poor Mary had been acquainted with sorrow), they did not flow like ordinary tears, but came spouting – spouting – from under her firm-set eyelids, and made their way down her sun-burnt cheeks, without exciting a single symptom of sympathy from the surrounding features. She was a good creature, notwithstanding; sincere – I was going to say, to excess. She prided herself upon being a "blunt, honest, God-fearing, and God-serving woman, as any in the three kingdoms, let t'other be who she might," and possessed a clan-like attachment to her employers. I have been frequently struck with the difference between Irish and English servants in this respect; an English servant always endeavours to erect her standard of independence without any reference to her master's name or fame; but Paddys and Shelahs 552 lug in the greatness, the ancient family, the virtues, and the wealth (when they possess any), on all occasions. "Sure, an' Mabby, you may hould your whisht any way," said one servant to another; "what dacency did you ever see? Who did you live wid? A taste of an English grocer! – who hadn't a drop of dacent blood in his veins – only tracle, 553 why? – the poor spillogue! – but I can lay my hand on my heart, and declare, in truth and honesty, that I always lived wid the best o' good families; and what signifies the trifle o' wages in comparison to the nobility, and the credit? Sure, if we must be slaves, it's a grate comfort to have the rale gintry over us!"
