It is true, she had a
female attendant; but to her she had been accustomed from childhood, and
Nanny Sidley, as her quondam nurse and actual lady's-maid was termed,
appeared so much a part of herself, that, while her absence would be
missed almost as greatly as that of a limb, her presence was as much a
matter of course as a hand or foot. Nor will a passing word concerning
this excellent and faithful domestic be thrown away, in the brief
preliminary explanations we are making.
Ann Sidley was one of those excellent creatures who, it is the custom with
the European travellers to say, do not exist at all in America, and who,
while they are certainly less numerous than could be wished, have no
superiors in the world, in their way. She had been born a servant, lived a
servant, and was quite content to die a servant,--and this, too, in one
and the same family. We shall not enter into a philosophical examination
of the reasons that had induced old Ann to feel certain she was in the
precise situation to render her more happy than any other that to her was
attainable; but feel it she did, as John Effingham used to express it,
"from the crown of her head to the sole of her foot." She had passed
through infancy, childhood, girlhood, up to womanhood, _pari passu_, with
the mother of Eve, having been the daughter of a gardener, who died in the
service of the family, and had heart enough to feel that the mixed
relations of civilised society, when properly understood and appreciated,
are more pregnant of happiness than the vulgar scramble and
heart-burnings, that, in the _melee_ of a migrating and unsettled
population, are so injurious to the grace and principles of American life.
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