Jim a lecture.”  Lecturing, however, was not then so popular as now, and Jim appears to have profited little by the veteran general’s discourse, for on the very next night he repeats his offence.  We have reason also to fear that Jim’s honesty was not above suspicion, for we read that Betsey, an American woman who acted as assistant housekeeper and companion, “found in Jim’s possession a red morocco pocket-book which I had given her, but “—­alas for Betsey!—­“with the contents all gone.”

Other entries to the effect that madam one day lost her key to the wine-cellar, and the next day discovered the bibulous Jim in the said cellar “sucking brandy through a straw inserted in the bunghole of the cask,” and that, “furthermore, Jim had confessed to having stolen and sold a coffee-basin for rum,” do not tend to raise in our estimation this pattern of an ancient darkey.  This time it appears that madam did not need to call in the aid of General T——­, for she admits that she herself “lectured Jim severely;” sarcastically adding, “he professed penitence, but that did not hinder him from stealing another basin to-day.”

But the refractory Jim, we think, must have been the exception which proved the rule that all servants prior to the late Celtic invasion were models of deportment.  Accordingly, we are not surprised to find that Betsey was a handmaiden held in high estimation, and that “old Jack” was a servant whose shortcomings were offset by his general good conduct and affectionate heart.  But we find also that there was a certain Sally, who could be tolerated only because of her great culinary skill; and an uncertain Silvy, who appears to have been in mind, if not in fact, the twin-sister of Jim, with a spice of Topsy thrown in.

The trouble in those days was not the prospect of suddenly losing cook or nursemaid, but that there was no getting rid of either.  The fact of slavery was, under the act of 1793, slowly fading away from Connecticut, but all its habits remained in full force.  “I wish I could send Jim and Silvy away,” writes madam, “but the poor rascals have no place to go to.”

Silvy was a tricksome spright that delighted in breaking bottles of the “best Madeira wine and spilling the contents over the new English carpet” when the mistress had invited the parson’s and the doctor’s families to dinner.  This, though of course it was “not to be endured,” might have been accidental, and so was very “tolerable” in comparison with Silvy’s next exploits of poisoning the beloved house-dog and throwing by the roadside the bottle of wine—­possibly emptied first—­the jar of jelly and the fresh quarter of lamb which had been sent to a poor and sick old woman.  These two offences, occurring on the same day, we are sorry to confess, incited the stately, white-handed dame to do something more decisive than to “deliver a lecture” to Silvy.  It is demurely recorded that “for these two misdeeds I whipped Silvy.”  What effect the whipping