The Maid of Sker by R.D. Blackmore

It really does seem as wise a plan as any I am acquainted with, to let this good woman act according to the constitution of her sex -- that is to say, to say her say, and never be contradicted. We contradicted her once or twice to reconcile her to herself; but all that came of it was to make her contradict perhaps herself, but certainly us, ten times as much. She did her best to explain her meaning; and we really ought to enter more into their disabilities. Therefore let her tell her story, as nearly in her own words, poor thing, as my sense of the English language can in any style agree with.

"I was nurse at Narnton Court, ever so many years ago -- when my name was Susan Moggeridge -- Charley, you cannot deny it, you know; and all of us must be content to grow old, it is foolish to look at things otherwise. Twelve and six, that makes eighteen; now, Captain Wells, you know it do; and, Charley, can you say otherwise? Then it must have been eighteen years agone, when I was took on for under-nurse, because the Princess was expecting, the same as the butler told me. And it came to pass on a Sunday night, with two miles away from the doctor. Orders had been given; but they foreigners always do belie them. Too soon always, or too late; and these two little dears was too soon, by reason of the wonderful child the eldest one was prepared for. A maid she was, and the other a boy; two real beauties both of them; as fair as could be, with little clear dots under their skin, in corner places, because of their mother the Princess. But nothing as anyone would observe, except for a beauty to both of them. The boy was the biggest, though the girl came first; and first was her nature in everything, except, of course, in fatness, and by reason of always dancing. Not six months old was that child before she could dance on the kitchen table with only one hand to hold her up, and a pleasure it was to look at her. And laugh with her little funny face, and nod her head, she would, as if she saw to the bottom of everything. And when she were scarce turned the twelvemonth, she could run, like -- oh, just like anything, and roll over and over on the grass with her ‘Pomyolianian dog,' as she called him, and there wasn't a word in the language as ever come amiss to her, but for the r's or the y's in it. Words such as I could lay no tongue to, she would take and pronounce right off, and then laugh at herself and everybody. And the way she used to put her hands out, laying down the law to all of us -- we didn't want a showman in the house so long as we had Miss Bertha, or ‘Bardie,' as she called herself, though christened after her mother. Everybody, the poor little mite, she expected everybody to know her name and all about her; and nothing put her in such a passion as to pretend not to know who she was. ‘I'se Bardie,' she used to cry out, with her little hands spread, and her bright eyes flashing; ‘I'se Bardie, I tell 'a; and evelybody knows it. ' Oh yes, and she never could say ‘th' -- but ‘niss' and ‘nat,' for this and that. And how angry she used to be, to be sure, if anybody mocked her, as we used to do for the fun of it. But even there, she was up to us, for she began to talk French, for revenge upon us, having taken the trick from her mother.