put you in a flurry ? If you 6 82 THE hearthstone; or, life at home. tread upon your master's gouty toe, will your begging his pardon make the weight of your heel less painful ? If you feel it very hard to be so often scolded by your mistress, don't you think that she feels it very hard to have to tell you the same thing half a dozen times in the course of the day ? She has told you not to slam doors, or kick them or put your weight against them, but to turn the knob and the lock. Yet you will keep on banging the door every time you enter or leave a room. This is torture even to the eyes and ears of mere visitors who happen to be present : what must it be to the patient mistress who tries, for your own sake as well as for hers, to make a good and thorough servant of you ? And then what a weight of woe there is in an untidy servant ! She scatters pins and needles wherever she goes instead of blessings. She never knows for five minutes together where she has put what you are looking for, and thinks it quite enough to assure you that it is quite safe because she remembers putting it away for safety. Then how friglitful are the effects upon the nervous system of others of little peculiarities, whether of mistress or servant! There is a way of looking at another person which dethrones their reason, and sets them topsy-turvy in a moment. A lady of the highest respectability went hopelessly insane because a single gentleman who took the rooms opposite to hers invariably stared at her with a fixed, sardonic leer. The old lady's reason, never very strong, gave way under such unusual attentions, which, of course, she interpreted as the deepest infatuation and the irresistible attraction of the magnet to the pole. Many a long night did the poor thing lie awake wondering when the old gentleman's eye would become more ex- pressive of affection, and his lips would "pop the question." But the time rolled on and the eye, though fixed upon her wherever she went with the same constancy as ever, did not soften or grow milder in its beam. It was a glass eye, but she did not know it. It is one of the most exasperating things in the world to be stared at, and if homicide were ever justifiable it ought to be so when applied to those who stare other people out of countenance. " UP-STAIRS, DOWN-STAIRS, IN MY LADY S CHAMBER. 83 There are many other excruciating habits by which mistresses can torture their servants, and servants their mistresses. Such, for instance, is the habit of constantly sniffling when spoken to, and saying, " Yes, m'm," a word of doubtful etymology, and not to be found in any dictionary. If a sniff meant approval like "Amen," it might be tolerated; as it is it has no meaning at all, but is a nasal confession of mental vacuity. So " Yes, m'm," if it meant that one's meaning was fully understood, and that one's wish would be obeyed, might be permissible, but if it have any meaning at all it signifies that the servant will go on saying " Yes, m'm," to the end of her days, and will never be any nearer than she is now -to understanding or obeying her mistress.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

put you in a flurry? If you 82 THE hearthstone; or, life at home. tread upon your master's gouty toe, will your begging his pardon make the weight of your heel less painful ? If you feel it very hard to be so often scolded by your mistress, don't you think that she feels it very hard to have to tell you the same thing half a dozen times in the course of the day ? She has told you not to slam doors, or kick them or put your weight against them, but to turn the knob and the lock. Yet you will keep on banging the door every time you enter or leave a room. This is torture even to the eyes and ears of mere visitors who happen to be present : what must it be to the patient mistress who tries, for your own sake as well as for hers, to make a good and thorough servant of you ? And then what a weight of woe there is in an untidy servant ! She scatters pins and needles wherever she goes instead of blessings. She never knows for five minutes together where she has put what you are looking for, and thinks it quite enough to assure you that it is quite safe because she remembers putting it away for safety. Then how frightful are the effects upon the nervous system of others of little peculiarities, whether of mistress or servant! There is a way of looking at another person which dethrones their reason, and sets them topsy-turvy in a moment. A lady of the highest respectability went hopelessly insane because a single gentleman who took the rooms opposite to hers invariably stared at her with a fixed, sardonic leer. The old lady's reason, never very strong, gave way under such unusual attentions, which, of course, she interpreted as the deepest infatuation and the irresistible attraction of the magnet to the pole. Many a long night did the poor thing lie awake wondering when the old gentleman's eye would become more expressive of affection, and his lips would "pop the question." But the time rolled on and the eye, though fixed upon her wherever she went with the same constancy as ever, did not soften or grow milder in its beam. It was a glass eye, but she did not know it. It is one of the most exasperating things in the world to be stared at, and if homicide were ever justifiable it ought to be so when applied to those who stare other people out of countenance. " UP-STAIRS, DOWN-STAIRS, IN MY LADY S CHAMBER. 83 There are many other excruciating habits by which mistresses can torture their servants, and servants their mistresses. Such, for instance, is the habit of constantly sniffling when spoken to, and saying, " Yes, m'm," a word of doubtful etymology, and not to be found in any dictionary. If a sniff meant approval like "Amen," it might be tolerated; as it is it has no meaning at all, but is a nasal confession of mental vacuity. So " Yes, m'm," if it meant that one's meaning was fully understood, and that one's wish would be obeyed, might be permissible, but if it have any meaning at all it signifies that the servant will go on saying " Yes, m'm," to the end of her days, and will never be any nearer than she is now -to understanding or obeying her mistress.

The hearthstone; or, Life at home