A domestic servant under a wise,
dignified, and kind mistress or housekeeper may live a healthy and
happy life; the servant of the mean shrew does not live at all in any
true sense of the word. No rational man can blame girls for preferring
the freedom of shop or factory to the thraldom of certain kinds of
domestic service. If we consider only the case of well-managed houses,
then we may wonder why any girl should enter a factory; but, on the
other hand, there is that dire vision of the mean shrew with gimlet
eye and bitter tongue! What would the mean shrew have made of Margaret
Catchpole, the Suffolk girl who was transported about one hundred
years ago? There is a problem. That girl's letters to her mistress are
simply throbbing with passionate love and gratitude; and the phrases
"My beloved mistress," "My dear, dear mistress," recur like sobs.
Margaret would have become a fiend under the mean shrew; but the holy
influence of a good lady made a noble woman of her, and she became a
pattern of goodness long after one rash but blameless freak was
forgotten. All Margaret's race now rise up and call her blessed, and
her spirit must have rejoiced when she saw her brilliant descendant
appearing in England two years ago as representative of a mighty
colony.
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