Or, she may have enjoyed--as who would not ?--having her own money to spend.

At any rate, she made a definite bargain with her uncle-in-law, by which she took charge of the sewing in his house, and received each year a hundred dollars in cash and her board.

It was not large pay for such service as she rendered, but then she preferred the house of a relative to that of a stranger.

When the second Mrs.Plausaby had come into the house, Mr.Plausaby had been glad to continue the arrangement, in the hope, perhaps, that Isa's good taste might modify that lady's love for discordant gauds.
To Albert Charlton, Isa's life seemed not to be on a very high key.

She had only a common-school education, and the leisure she had been able to command for general reading was not very great, nor had the library in the house of Plausaby been very extensive.