THE LITTLE HOUSEWIFE. 75 



lodgers, those at least of the same rank, were shaped in like 

 fashion and out of the same useful stuff as herself. She was 

 not only indefatigable in the feminine cares of nursing and at- 

 tendance on the young and weakly, but was also an adept in 

 various toilsome occupations, such as building, digging, and 

 foraging labours always performed by herself and sisterhood, 

 after the custom of some remote countries, called barbarous, as 

 well as (more or less) of certain others much nearer home, which 

 are mis-called civilized. To all her laudable activity it might 

 have been naturally expected, that our useful busy-body would 

 have added a portion of such prudent fore-thought, as would 

 have secured to herself a certain provision against the approach 

 of winter, a season which interrupted her labours, and nearly 

 cut off her supplies ; but no such thing : the most heedless lover 

 of pleasure that ever tripped it in a ball-room, or fluttered from 

 flower to flower, could not possibly have taken less " thought 

 for the morrow " than our toiling villager. Often at work, not 

 only from morn till eve, but from eve till dewy morn, she had 

 turned, as it were, the summer into one long day, and seemed 

 to think that she had thereby acquired a title to convert the 

 winter, or as much of it as she chose, into one long night. 

 At all events, both she and her fellow-labourers had earned the 

 right (of which they were never defrauded) of being as warmly 

 lodged, during the inclement season, as their betters, those 

 at least, for whom they had been toiling, and whose habitation 

 they shared as well as built. Accordingly, when December 



