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408 A SEASON WITH THE DRESSMAKERS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
* There Know Not Is What An Old We Adage...
I ' shall . not attempt to record the history of ray early life , as that would be _aj _> art from my subject , and probably uninteresting" to
most of my readers . Suffice it , that I -was placed in a superior boarding-school , at the early age of three years ; studied ( I hope
diligently ) , till I was fifteen / the usual branches of an English edut cation , with [ French , music , dancing , & c , and am to this day
visited by my schoolmistress as a friend . If , therefore , . 1 possess any advantages in scholarship over many of those witli
whom I have since become associated , I am indebted for it _^ under Providencefirst to the kind and liberal views ; of mvl
, father and mother , and secondly , to the patient endurance of good | ins tract or s- • I
. Bearing a French name , it is sup _23 osed by many that I must be | a Frenchwoman , an error I correct with pride , being born in the !
however City of , Xiondon having , been in tlie of year French 1826 extraction , of Eng . lish parents , my father , j I
It was with a heart full of sorrow that I first found myself \ launched upon the wide world . Xiong accustomed to all the com- |
forts and indulgences of home , I was but little j _> repared to combat \ in ; the scene before me . I felt indeed alone . It was never my \
practice to give way . to trouble , and I applied myself as cheerfully \ as I could to the discharge , of my duties . That I acquitted myself \
satisfactorily , I had every reason to believe , as I soon discovered myself high in favour with the principal . I remained with her but
a comparatively short _};) eriod—a vear anc _^ a half—when she retired from business ; and as I felt I should not agree quite so well
with her successor , I determined to change my situation . She was not , however , destined to be as successful as her predecessor , for in
less than two years from the time when she paid down £ 800 , as . purchaser of that business , she was _comj ) elled to abandon it—or
rather it abandoned her—she lost her all , and the establishment was broken up .
Had this house still been occupied for the purposes of millinery and dressmaking , I should have considered it a part of my duty to
enter more particularly into the system upon which it was conducted , but as it is , I will merely say , that though there were
certainly faults in many of the arrangements , they were infinitely less serious than those I have since experienced in other houses
, with only one exception . This was , that the house itself being small , and incapable of providing sleeping accommodation for
many of the young people , a house immediately at the back was rentedand used entirely as bedrooms , the servants of the chief
, residence going round each morning to attend to the necessary requirements . To the door of this sleeping house there were
. three keys distributed between the young people and servants ; thus , if any one had asked , permission during the " dull
season / ' to go out in the evening , though the authorized hour for
408 A Season With The Dressmakers.
408 A _SEASON WITH THE DRESSMAKERS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Aug. 1, 1863, page 408, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01081863/page/48/
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