The Old Nurse's Story/ Half a Life-time Ago (annotated) - Tapa blanda

You know, my dears, that your mother was an orphan, and an only child; and I dare say you have heard that your grand-father was a clergyman up in Westmoreland, where I come from. I was just a girl in the village school, when, one day, your grandmother came in to ask the mistress if there was any scholar there who would do for a nurse-maid; and mighty proud I was, I can tell ye, when the mistress called me up, and spoke to my being a good girl at my needle, and a steady, honest girl, and one whose parents were very respectable, though they might be poor I thought I should like nothing better than to serve the pretty, young lady, who was blushing as deep as I was

Along with short stories and a biography of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865) published five more novels including "Wives and Daughters" (1865).