Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.308
Various
Various
Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No.308 / New Series, Saturday, November 24, 1849
THE HALF-BOARDER
BY MRS ALARIC A. WATTS
When a naturalist is desirous of describing any genus of peculiar interest in the world of nature, we generally find him selecting one of the kind as a specimen from which to draw his description of the whole race; satisfied that, although distinctions may exist in minor details between it and others of its species, the general characteristics will be found alike in all.
In endeavouring to sketch the principal incidents in the history of a class whose trials seem peculiarly interesting, because coming at a period of life usually exempted from them, I have pursued a similar course; and though the career of my heroine may present features peculiar to itself, as must ever be the case with personal history, her experiences will, I believe, be found to differ in no essential particular from those of the great body of her sisterhood. It can hardly be deemed necessary perhaps to begin the biography of the half-boarder from the hour of her birth; it may be sufficient to state that she is usually the eldest daughter of parents of the middle class, depressed into comparative poverty either by misfortune or imprudence, but blessed with the inalienable advantage of belonging to 'a good family,' and being enabled to boast of relatives of consideration in the world. Her earliest years are too often passed amid all the horrors of genteel but biting penury; in witnessing, daily, cares that have become familiarised, though not lightened, to her by frequent recurrence; and sharing anxieties which, though studiously concealed from her, experience has enabled her to divine, without suggesting any means of alleviating. Her duties are sufficiently multifarious: she shares the labours of by taking upon herself the lighter portion of the house work; and adds to this the heavier burthens of unremitting attendance on an ailing mother, and constant endeavours to divert the anxieties of a careworn father. She is the governess of such of her half-dozen brothers and sisters as are old enough to profit by her instruction, enlightening them with such gleams of knowledge as her own limited opportunities may have enabled her to acquire; and is at the same time the playmate and nurse of the younger members of her family. Thus matters usually stand until our heroine is about fourteen years old, when some pressing emergency induces the wife, notwithstanding her own repugnance, and the strong discouragement of her husband, to apply to his family for pecuniary assistance. The welldoing uncles or cousins, though at first astonished at the assurance of the world in general, and their own poor relation in particular, are not more hardhearted than is usual with persons who have all their lives enjoyed an uninterrupted tide of prosperity, and a family council is therefore held to consider what should be done in the matter. It is agreed at once, without a dissentient voice, that any pecuniary advances would be entirely out of the question; that they would only patch matters for a time, without being of any permanent service to the family; and, what is not the least objection, might afford an inconvenient precedent for similar applications in future emergencies: and it is finally determined that the aid which will prove eventually of most service to the family, at the least cost to themselves, may be afforded by assuming the charge of the education of the eldest child. The matron of the conclave is therefore deputed to make known to the applicant that, although they feel themselves precluded from complying with the specific request contained in her letter, yet that, being desirous of serving her family in consideration of the blood relationship subsisting between her husband and themselves, they have determined on relieving her from the burthen of Maria's education.
'The little maid some four foot high,'
The first feeling of the anxious circle on the r