“2d. She has a right to ask for the punctual payment of her wages on the quarter-day.
“3d. She has a right to ask that some little portion of the day may be considered her own time. The precise time must depend upon the habits of the family. Generally, after eight o’clock in the evening would be convenient; but when the dinner-hour is late, and much company is kept, some other hour must be fixed. Sometimes—with nurses, for instance—it has been found better to let them take all the needlework time, on one or two days of the month, for their own work. _Some time there must be_, or a servant cannot do credit to her place, by keeping herself neat and respectable. But the time should never be _stolen_: a mistress pays for time, and it is her right. There must be a distinct understanding between the mistress and servant; and I do not hesitate to say, from my own experience, that such an arrangement would be found mutually advantageous.”
After the meeting was over, several little groups might be seen in various parts of the room, engaged in earnest conversation. I heard one of them say it was “a sight clearer to her than ever it had been before.”
About two years after this conversation, a woman called at my house, one morning, bringing her two daughters with her, apparently about seventeen or eighteen years of age. I remembered she had formerly attended our meeting, but she had since removed from the immediate neighbourhood. After the first inquiries had passed, she said—
“I don’t know whether you remember, ma’am, about two years ago you talked to us at the Mothers’ Meeting, one evening, all about servants and missuses, and such like. I was there, and these two girls. We had been puzzling ourselves a deal, for some time before, to know what was best to do; and we understood what you said, and liked it; and it seemed to make us see things better than we had ever done before. I had heard of some places for them; but we were afraid they would be overworked, and all that. As we were going home, the girls said they would try for it: they didn’t want to be ‘gingerbread people,’ either. So they took heart, and went to work, and they have been hard at it ever since. They ar’n’t very stout, you see, ma’am; for they’ve had plenty of work, and none too much to live upon. But she’s a cook (pointing to the eldest), and I’ll be bound no master’ll ever send for her to say she’s spoiled his dinner; and she’s been in the nursery (pointing to the youngest), and learned to do needlework well, as I can shew you (producing a piece of work). There, ma’am, ar’n’t that something like it should be? She won’t have to bargain for what she can’t do, that’s certain.”