| I WAS the daughter of Lambert Hutchins, | |
| Born in a cottage near the grist-mill, | |
| Reared in the mansion there on the hill, | |
| With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate. | |
| How proud my mother was of the mansion! | 5 |
| How proud of father’s rise in the world! | |
| And how my father loved and watched us, | |
| And guarded our happiness. | |
| But I believe the house was a curse, | |
| For father’s fortune was little beside it; | 10 |
| And when my husband found he had married | |
| A girl who was really poor, | |
| He taunted me with the spires, | |
| And called the house a fraud on the world, | |
| A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopes | 15 |
| Of a dowry not to be had; | |
| And a man while selling his vote | |
| Should get enough from the people’s betrayal | |
| To wall the whole of his family in. | |
| He vexed my life till I went back home | 20 |
| And lived like an old maid till I died, | |
| Keeping house for father. | |
