Too many maids are paid largely in kind: table scraps, cast-off clothes and a shack at the bottom of the garden.

ECONOMIST: South Africa

The family wasn't wealthy, but the brothers always had clothes on their backs and food on the table.

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In the days when Costigan was more lively she had enjoyed these moments of deception, the exact change put down on the table, what she had saved still secreted in her clothes until she could get upstairs to the Gold Flake tin.

NEWYORKER: The Woman of the House

Designed by fashion icon Betsey Johnson, the pink paradise is complete with pink-and-white striped wallpaper, a table set for a fancy tea party and a closet stuffed with dress-up clothes.

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