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That blessed privilege of the state of “girlhood” in the country—
the undisturbed possession of Sunday—not falling to the lot
of Miss Clifford, she could only snatch a moment to visit her mother
and sister, and deposit with the latter the various little matters
which were the fruit of her first earnings. She went, however,
in high spirits. “Poor Rose will be so happy!” she said.

When she returned, a cloud sat on her beautiful brow, and her
cheeks bore the marks of much weeping. “Mamma received
me very coldly,” she said; “she thinks I am enjoying myself
with you! But I must bear this—it is a part of my duty, and I
thought I had made up my mind to it. 'Twill be but a little
while! When Augustus comes, all will be well again.”

Strong in virtuous resolution, Anna returned to her toil. Another
week or two passed, and the Larkinses continued to esteem
themselves the most fortunate of girl-hunters. Anna's active habits,
strong sense, and high principle, made all go well; and the
influence which she soon established over the household, was such
as superior intellect would naturally command, where there was
no idea of difference of station. Mrs. Larkins would have thought
the roughest of her neighbours' daughters entitled to a full equality
with herself; and she treated Miss Clifford with all the additional
respect which her real superiority demanded. It has been
well said that the highest intellectual qualifications may find employment
in the arrangements of a household; and our friends
the Larkinses, young and old, if they had ever heard of the doctrine,
would, I doubt not, have subscribed to it heartily, for they
will never forget Miss Clifford's reign. Without dictating, like
good Mrs. Mason, in the Cottagers of Glenburnie, (whose benefits,

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I have sometimes thought, must have been harder to bear than
other people's injuries,) she continued to introduce many excellent
improvements, and indeed a general reform throughout.
The beds were shielded from public view; the family ablutions
were no longer performed in an iron skillet on the hearth, or a
trough under the eaves; and Mrs. Larkins solemnly burnt the
willow switch which had hitherto been her only means of government,
declaring the children never required it under Miss Clifford's
excellent management. Thus encouraged by her success
in the process of civilization, Anna told me laughingly that she
did not despair of the highest step—to induce Mrs. Larkins to
boil corned beef instead of frying it, and Mr. Larkins to leave off
tobacco. And far from feeling degraded by her labours, she said
she was quite raised in her own opinion by the discovery of her
power of being useful.

I own I suspected a little the solidity of this boast of independence.
We sometimes say such things for a double purpose—as
a boy passing through a church-yard at night whistles partly to
show he is not afraid and partly to keep up his courage. Anna's
position with regard to the people with whom she lived, was indeed,
as we have said, one of decided superiority. To see her
maid well drest and at leisure every afternoon, seated in the
“keepin'-room” ready to be introduced to any one who should
call; to give her always the lady-like title of “Miss,” and to
share with her whatever was laborious or unpleasant in the daily
business—this Mrs. Larkins considered perfectly proper in all
cases, and to Miss Clifford she gladly conceded more in the way
of respectful observance. But in this vulgar world, spite of all
that philosophers have said and poets sung, there lurks yet a certain
degree of prejudice, which makes real independence not one
of the cheap virtues.

Yet if we look for a recognition of this truth any where out of
the woods, we shall probably be frowned upon as very wild waifs
from dream-land—visionaries, who, in this enlightened age, can
still cling to the antiquated notion, that theory should be the mould

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of practice. So, in my pride of worldly wisdom, I took upon me
to doubt whether my friend Anna was indeed the heroine she
thought herself. The matter was not long doubtful.

Among the gentlemen who had been disposed to play the agreeable
to Miss Clifford, was a certain Captain Maguire, an Irish
officer, who had met her in Montreal. From Anna herself one
would never have learned that her beauty had found a solitary
adorer; but the tender and unselfish Rose could not help boasting
a little, in her quiet way, of the triumphs of her sister's charms.
She had thought well of the Captain's pretensions, and rather
wondered that his handsome person and gallant bearing had not
made some impression upon Anna, who was the object of his devoted
attention.

“But Anna thought him a coxcomb,” she said, “and never
gave him the least crumb of encouragement; so, poor fellow! he
gave over in despair.”

Now, as it would happen, just at the wrong time, this unencouraged
and despairing gentleman chanced to be one of a party
who made a flying pilgrimage to the prairies; and being thus far
favoured by chance, he took his further fate into his own hands,
so far as sufficed to bring him to the humble village which he had
understood to be shone upon temporarily by the bright eyes of
Miss Clifford. He went first to her mother's, of course, and during
a short call, ascertained from the old lady that her youngest
daughter was on a visit to us. The Captain was not slow in
taking advantage of the information, and he was at our door
before Rose had at all made up her mind what should be done in
such an emergency.

I was equally embarrassed, since one never knows on what
nice point those things called love affairs may turn. However, I
detained the Captain, and wrote a note to Miss Clifford. What
was my surprise when a verbal answer was returned, inviting
Captain Maguire and myself to Mrs. Larkins'. There was no
alternative, so I shawled forthwith; but I really do not know how
I led the young gentleman through the shop into the rag-carpeted
sitting-room of Mrs. Larkins. The scene upon which the door
opened must have been a novel one for fashionable optics.

Anna Clifford, with a white apron depending from her taper

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waist, stood at the ironing-table, half hidden by a clothes-frame
already well covered with garments of all sizes. Mrs. Larkins
occupied her own, dear, creaking rocking-chair; holding a little
one in her lap, and jogging another in the cradle, while blue-eyed
minims trotted about or sat gravely staring at the strangers.

“Get up, young 'uns!” said Mrs. Larkins, hastily, as Captain
Maguire's imposing presence caught her eye, and Miss Clifford
came forward to welcome him; “Jump up! clear out!” And
as she spoke she tipped one of the minims off a chair, offering the
vacated seat to the gentleman, who, not noticing that it was a
nursing-chair, some three or four inches lower than usual, plumped
into it after a peculiar fashion, a specimen of bathos far less
amusing to the young officer than to the infant Larkinses, who
burst into a very natural laugh.

“Shut up!” said the mother, reprovingly; “you haven't a
grain o' manners! What must you blaat out so for?” Then
turning to the Captain with an air of true maternal mortification,
she observed, “I dare say you've noticed how much worse children
always behave when there's company. Mine always act
like Sancho! How do you do, sir, and how's your folks?”

This civility was delivered with an indescribable drawl, and
an accent which can never be expressed on paper.

Captain Maguire replied by giving satisfactory assurance of
his own health; but having a large family connection and no
particular home, perhaps thought it unnecessary to notice the
second branch of Mrs. Larkins' inquiry.

Miss Clifford meanwhile asked after friends in Montreal and
elsewhere, and entertained her dashing beau with all the ease and
grace that belonged to the drawing-rooms in which they had last
met. It was most amusing to note the air with which Anna ran
over the splendid names of her quondam friends, and contrast it
with the puzzled look which would make itself evident, spite of
“power of face,” in the countenance of her visitor. Never was
man more completely mystified.

At the very first pause, Mrs. Larkins, who was particularly
social, and who had seemed watching a chance to “put in,” asked
the Captain, with much earnestness, if he knew “a man by the
name of Maguire,” who had been in “Canady” in the last war

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“Was he any relation to the Captain? He used to peddle some
among the sojers around Montreal and those parts.”

The Captain declared he did not recollect the gentleman, but
he had hundreds of Irish cousins, and thought it highly probable
that Mrs. Larkins' friend might be one of them.

“Oh! he wasn't an Irishman at all! He was a very respectable
man!” said the lady.

“Ah then!” remarked the Captain, with perfect gravity, “I'm
quite sure he can't be one of my cousins!”

And Mrs. Larkins gravely replied, “No, I dare say he wasn't;
but I thought I'd ask. What are you a cracklin' so between your
teeth?” continued she, addressing Daniel Webster.

“Oh! the bark of pork,” replied the young gentleman.

“Rind, Webster,” said Anna; “you should say rind.”

“Well! rind, then,” was the reply.

Mr. Larkins now brought in a huge armful of stove-wood,
which he threw into a corner with a loud crash.

“Will there be as much wood as you'll want, Miss Clifford?”
said he.

“Yes—quite enough, thank you,” said Anna, composedly; “I
have nearly finished the ironing.”

At this, the Captain, with a look in which was concentrated the
essence of a dozen shrugs, took his leave, declaring himself quite
delighted to have found Miss Clifford looking so well.

We were no sooner in the open air than he began—and I did
not wonder—

“May I ask—will you tell me, Madam, what is the meaning
of Miss Clifford's travestie? Is she masquerading for some frolic?
or is it a bet?—for I know young ladies do bet, sometimes—”

“Neither, sir,” I replied. “Miss Clifford is, in sad and sober
earnest, filling the place of a servant, that she may procure the
necessaries of life for her family. More than one friend would
gladly offer aid in an emergency which we trust will be only
temporary, but Miss Clifford, with rare independence, prefers devoting
herself as you have seen.”

“Bless my soul! what a noble girl! What uncommon spirit
and resolution! I never heard anything like it! Such a

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splendid creature to be so sacrificed!” These and a hundred other enthusiastic
expressions broke from the gay Captain, while I recounted
some of the circumstances which had brought Mrs. Clifford's
family to this low ebb; but as he pursued his trip to the
prairies the next morning without attempting to procure another
interview with the lady he so warmly admired, I came to the
conclusion—not a very uncharitable one, I hope—that Anna had
shown her usual acuteness in the estimate she had formed of his
character.

Perhaps the Captain thought his pay too trifling to be shared
with so exalted a heroine. But we must not complain, for his
mystified look and manner at Mrs. Larkins' affords us a permanent
income of laughter, which is something in these dull times;
and I have learned, by means of his visit, that there is one really
independent woman in the world.

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