into insignificance beside her; her gowns were so smart, and her requirements were so many. Now came the time of Martha's trial, and, poor child, a severe ordeal it proved to be. She was called upon, without any previous training, and with no help beyond her own native wits, to wait at the dinner-table. I must say that Martha's wits (being, though tenacious, somewhat slow) at times failed her; but, on the whole, it seemed to me that she did very well indeed, especially as Mrs. Norris, during the dinner hour, confiscated her spectacles, so that she was obliged to find her way about the room in that semi-mist which blurs the vision of very short-sighted people. Her appearance, however, as her mistress justly observed, was enormously improved thereby; and her eyes, albeit often red and swollen with much weeping, were so well-shaped and charmingly fringed with long lashes that one could hardly regret the absence of the ugly, though useful, glasses. Poor little Martha! She used to hand the dishes, I remember, with awkward haste and alacrity, born of an earnest desire to give satisfaction and to succeed. Her cheeks were flushed, her small hands a trifle tremulous; her hair—usually dragged back from her forehead and twisted into a tight knot behind—had become, by this time in the evening, slightly loosened: here and there a stray curl crept above her brow. She was still very shabby; and in consequence of much hard work and little leisure, her hands, I noticed, had lost their first appearance of cleanliness, and become permanently roughened and begrimed. But, in spite of this, I began to look upon Martha as quite a pretty girl.
She did not have a particularly good time of it, I am afraid; she was far too sweet-tempered and anxious to conciliate everybody. Most of the hard words of the household, and a good deal of its concentrated ill-temper, fell to her share, and was borne by
