"
In a small room fronting the street, the mild old woman sat, with
her bed in one corner, and her simple vassals ranged upon the forms
around. Here, "with quaint arts," she swayed the giddy crowd of
little imprisoned elves, whilst they fretted away their irksome
schooltime, and unconsciously played their innocent prelude to the
serious drama of life. As we approach the open door--
"The noises intermix'd, which thence resound,
Do learning's little tenement betray;
Where sits the dame disguised in look profound,
And eyes her fairy throng, and turns her wheel around."
The venerable little woman had lived in this house fourteen years.
She was seventy-three years of age, and a native of Limerick. She
was educated at St Ann's School, in Dublin, and she had lived
fourteen years in the service of a lady in that city. The old dame
made an effort to raise her feeble form when we entered, and she
received us as courteously as the finest lady in the land could have
done. She told us that she charged only a penny a-week for her
teaching; but, said she, "some of them can't pay it." "There's a
poor child," continued she, "his father has been out of work eleven
months, and they are starving but for the relief.
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