In the county town of a certain shire there lived (about forty years ago) one Mr. Wilkins, a conveyancing attorney of considerable standing. The certain shire was but a small county, and the principal town in it contained only about four thousand inhabitants; so in saying that Mr. Wilkins was the principal lawyer in Hamley, I say very little, unless I add that he transacted all the legal business of the gentry for twenty miles round. His grandfather had established the connection; his father had consolidated and strengthened it, and, indeed, by his wise and upright conduct, as well as by his professional skill,

It is a great thing for a lad when he is first turned into the independence of lodgings. I do not think I ever was so satisfied and proud in my life as when, at seventeen, I sate down in a little three-cornered room above a pastry-cook's shop in the county town of Eltham. My father had left me that afternoon, after delivering himself of a few plain precepts, strongly expressed, for my guidance in the new course of life on which I was entering. I was to be a clerk under the engineer who had undertaken to make the little branch line from Eltham to Hornby. My father had got me this situation, which was in a position rather above his own in life; or perhaps I should say, above the station in which he was born and bred; for he was raising himself every year in men's consideration and respect. He was a mechanic by trade, but he

我是一个老婆子了，东西都是非常不同，他们在我年少的模样。然后我们，谁走，乘坐旅游巴士，携带6里面，使一两天的路程出人们现在去了几个小时了一个高手和一个闪光灯，以及尖叫声口哨，足以使耳聋之一。接着信件进来，但每周3次：的确，在苏格兰的一些地方，我住的时候我是一个女孩的地方，但后来在每月一次; - 信，但信是当时的，我们取得了伟大的奖品他们，他们阅读和研究他们喜欢的书籍。现在来恫吓后在一天两次，使短期肉干注意到，一些没有开始或结束，而只是一个小尖句，其中有教养的人们会觉得太突然要发言。好，好！他们都可能被改进， - 我敢说他们，但你绝不会与夫人勒德罗满足这些天。 我会尝试，告诉她你。这不是故事：有，正如我所说，无论开头，中间，也结束。 我父亲是一个穷牧师的一个大家族。我母亲总是说有良好的血液在血管里流动，而当她想保持她与她被抛出中，人 - 主要是富人的民主制造商，都为自由和法国大革命的立场， - 她将穿上一对的褶边，与真正的老英语点修剪，很该死可以肯定， - 但不能买了新的爱情或金钱，因为它使艺术失去了几年前。这些褶边表明，她说，她的祖先曾大人物，当有钱人，现在谁看的祖父在她下来，已小人物， - 事实上，如果他们有过任何的祖父。我不知道任何一个我们自己的家庭是否注意到了这些溽暑， - 但我们都为孩子们感到很自豪，当我的母亲穿上，并举行了我们的领袖们，成为该教的后裔谁拥有了第一夫人的花边。但不是我亲爱的父亲经常告诉我们，骄傲是一个伟大的罪恶，我们是绝不容许任何东西感到骄傲，但我母亲的溽暑：她是那么天真快乐当她穿上， - 通常，可怜的家伙，一个非常破旧和破旧的长衫， - 我仍然认为，即使在我所有的生活经验，他们是一对家庭的祝福。你会认为我从我的夫人勒德罗游荡了。根本没有。谁曾拥有的花边，乌苏拉汉伯里夫人， === I am an old woman now, and things are very different to what they were in my youth. Then we, who travelled, travelled in coaches, carrying six inside, and making a two days' journey out of what people now go over in a couple of hours with a whizz and a flash, and a screaming whistle, enough to deafen one. Then letters came in but three times a week: indeed, in some places in Scotland where I have stayed when I was a girl, the post came in but once a month;--but letters were letters then; and we made great prizes of them, and read them and studied them like books. Now the post comes rattling in twice a day, bringing short jerky notes, some without beginning or end, but just a little sharp sentence, which well-bred folks would think too abrupt to be spoken. Well, well! they may all be improvements,--I dare say they are; but you will never meet with a Lady Ludlow in these days. I will try and tell you about her. It is no story: it has, as I said, neither beginning, middle, nor end. My father was a poor clergyman with a large family. My mother was always said to have good blood in her veins; and when she wanted to maintain her position with the people she was thrown among,-- principally rich democratic manufacturers, all for liberty and the French Revolution,--she would put on a pair of ruffles, trimmed with real old English point, very much darned to be sure,--but which could not be bought new for love or money, as the art of making it was lost years before. These ruffles showed, as she said, that her ancestors had been Somebodies, when the grandfathers of the rich folk, who now looked down upon her, had been Nobodies,--if, indeed, they had any grandfathers at all. I don't know whether any one out of our own family ever noticed these ruffles,--but we were all taught as children to feel rather proud when my mother put them on, and to hold up our heads as became the descendants of the lady who had first possessed the lace. Not but what my dear father often told us that pride was a great sin; we were never allowed to be proud of anything but my mother's ruffles: and she was so innocently happy when she put them on,--often, poor dear creature, to a very worn and threadbare gown,--that I still think, even after all my experience of life, they were a blessing to the family. You will think that I am wandering away from my Lady Ludlow. Not at all. The Lady who had owned the lace, Ursula Hanbury,

很久以前我被我的父母置于某道森先生，在爱丁堡，谁，已取得了一类疾病治疗的声誉，特别是外科医生治疗。我被送到我到他家附近的住宿家庭教师，在旧城区。我把从优秀爱丁堡主人教训的药品，并行使我的身体不适需要。一开始是比较沉闷的离开我的兄弟姐妹，并给予我们的快乐外的门与我国的家庭生活，为沉闷的住房，只有邓肯小姐差严重的伴侣，并交流在我们的嬉闹花园，并通过在街上散步等领域的激烈散步，其中的礼仪，我有义务为配合我的帽带整齐，并把我的一些直线把披肩。 傍晚时分最差。这是秋天，当然，他们每天越来越长：他们是够长，我相信，当我们第一次落户单调的灰色和住宿。因为，你必须知道，我的父亲和母亲并不富裕，而且是一个伟大的我们许多人，以及医疗费用由我被下道森先生的关怀，预计可产生大量放置，因此，一个伟大的点在我们的住处搜查后的经济。我的父亲，谁是真正的绅士也觉得虚假的耻辱，这已命名的廉价道森先生的必要性，并作为回报，道森先生告诉那些对他在第6克罗默街中，我们终于解决。这所房子属于一个老人，在同一时间内的青年男女为大学做准备，在他的能力已成为众所周知的道森先生导师。但是，他的学生把下降，而当我们来到他提出，我想，他的主要支持是由数了，他偶尔从中吸取教训，从让我们的房间了，一客厅开放进入床室，其中一小室领导。他的女儿是他的管家：一个儿子，而我们从来没有见过，应该是领导和我一样生活，他的父亲在他面前这样做，只是我们没有看到或听到任何学生，以及有一个勤劳，诚实的小苏格兰处女，正方形，粗短，整洁，朴素，谁可能被任何年龄在18岁至40。 === Long ago I was placed by my parents under the medical treatment of a certain Mr. Dawson, a surgeon in Edinburgh, who had obtained a reputation for the cure of a particular class of diseases. I was sent with my governess into lodgings near his house, in the Old Town. I was to combine lessons from the excellent Edinburgh masters, with the medicines and exercises needed for my indisposition. It was at first rather dreary to leave my brothers and sisters, and to give up our merry out-of-doors life with our country home, for dull lodgings, with only poor grave Miss Duncan for a companion; and to exchange our romps in the garden and rambles through the fields for stiff walks in the streets, the decorum of which obliged me to tie my bonnet-strings neatly, and put on my shawl with some regard to straightness. The evenings were the worst. It was autumn, and of course they daily grew longer: they were long enough, I am sure, when we first settled down in those gray and drab lodgings. For, you must know, my father and mother were not rich, and there were a great many of us, and the medical expenses to be incurred by my being placed under Mr. Dawson's care were expected to be considerable; therefore, one great point in our search after lodgings was economy. My father, who was too true a gentleman to feel false shame, had named this necessity for cheapness to Mr. Dawson; and in return, Mr. Dawson had told him of those at No. 6 Cromer Street, in which we were finally settled. The house belonged to an old man, at one time a tutor to young men preparing for the University, in which capacity he had become known to Mr. Dawson. But his pupils had dropped off; and when we went to lodge with him, I imagine that his principal support was derived from a few occasional lessons which he gave, and from letting the rooms that we took, a drawing-room opening into a bed-room, out of which a smaller chamber led. His daughter was his housekeeper: a son, whom we never saw, supposed to be leading the same life that his father had done before him, only we never saw or heard of any pupils; and there was one hard-working, honest little Scottish maiden, square, stumpy, neat, and plain, who might have been any age from eighteen to forty.