I had been introduced as an object of abhorrence into the family; as a creature of whom my step-mother, though she had been kind enough to let me live in the house with her own child, could make nothing.

I was described as a wretch, whose nose must be kept to the grinding stone--and it was held there with an iron grasp.

It seemed indeed the privilege of their superior nature to kick me about, like the dog or cat.

If I were attentive, I was called fawning, if refractory, an obstinate mule, and like a mule I received their censure on my loaded back.

Often has my mistress, for some instance of forgetfulness, thrown me from one side of the kitchen to the other, knocked my head against the wall, spit in my face, with various refinements on barbarity that I forbear to enumerate, though they were all acted over again by the servant, with additional insults, to which the appellation of bastard, was commonly added, with taunts or sneers.