THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF MOLL FLANDERS
5
'for', says I, 'there is such a one', naming a woman that mended lace and washed the ladies' laced heads; 'she', says I, 'is a gentlewoman, and they call her madam.'
'Poor child', says my good old nurse, 'you may soon be such a gentle woman as that, for she is a person of ill fame, and has had two bastards.'
I did not understand anything of that; but I answered, 'I am sure they call her madam, and she does not go to service, nor do house-work'; and therefore I insisted that she was a gentlewoman, and I would be such a gentlewoman as that.
The ladies were told all this again, and they made themselves merry with it, and every now and then Mr Mayor's daughters would come and see me, and ask where the little gentlewoman was, which made me not a little proud of myself besides. I was often visited by these young ladies, and sometimes they brought others with them; so that I was known by it almost all over the town.
I was now about ten years old, and began to look a little womanish, for I was mighty grave, very mannerly, and as I had often heard the ladies say I was pretty, and would be very handsome, you may be sure it made me not a little proud. However, that pride had no ill effect upon me yet; only, as they often gave me money, and I gave it my old nurse, she, honest woman, was so just as to lay it out again for me, and gave me head dresses, and linen, and gloves, and I went very neat, for if I had rags on, I would always be clean, or else I would dabble them in water myself; but, I say, my good nurse, when I had money given me, very honestly laid it out for me, and would always tell the ladies this or that was bought with their money; and this made them give me more, till at last I was indeed called upon by the magistrates to go out to service. But then I was become so good a workwoman myself, and the ladies were so kind to me, that I was past it; for I could earn as much for my nurse as was enough to keep me; so she told them, that if they would give her leave, she would keep the gentlewoman, as she called me, to be her assistant, and teach the children, which I was very well able to do; for I was very nimble at my work, though I was yet very young.
But the kindness of the ladies did not end here, for when they understood that I was no more maintained by the town as before, they gave me money oftener; and, as I grew up, they brought me work to do for them, such as linen to make, laces to mend, and heads to dress up, and not only paid me for doing them, but even taught me how to do them; so that I was a gentlewoman indeed, as I understood that word; for before I was twelve years old, I not only found myself clothes, and paid my nurse for my keeping, but got money in my pocket too.
The ladies also gave me clothes frequently of their own, or their children's; some stockings, some petticoats, some gowns, some one thing, some another; and these my old woman managed for me like a mother, and kept them for me, obliged me to mend them, and turn them to the best advantage, for she was a rare housewife.
At last one of the ladies took such a fancy to me that she would have me home to her house, for a month, she said, to be among her daughters.
Now, though this was exceeding kind in her, yet, as my good woman said to her, unless she resolved to keep me for good and all, she would do the little gentlewoman more harm than good. 'Well', says the lady, 'that's true; I'll only take her home for a week, then, that I may see how
