r faith.' You have given me more than I had, however. But are we to
say no more about anything? Must we leave this comfortable fire, and go
to sleep?"

"Not unless you wish it. I have more to ask, if you are not tired."

"Come, ask me."

"Cannot you tell me of some way in which a woman may earn money?"

"A woman? What rate of woman? Do you mean yourself? That question is
easily answered. A woman from the uneducated classes can get a
subsistence by washing and cooking, by milking cows and going to
service, and, in some parts of the kingdom, by working in a cotton mill,
or burnishing plate, as you have no doubt seen for yourself at
Birmingham. But, for an educated woman, a woman with the powers which
God gave her, religiously improved, with a reason which lays life open
before her, an understanding which surveys science as its appropriate
task, and a conscience which would make every species of responsibility
safe,--for such a woman there is in all England no chance of subsistence
but by teaching--that almost ineffectual teaching, which can never
countervail the education of circumstances, and for which not one in a
thousand is fit--or by being a superior Miss Nares--the feminine gender
of the tailor and the hatter."

"The tutor, the tailor, and the hatter. Is this all?"

"All; except that there are departments of art and literature from which
it is impossible to shut women out. These are not, however, to be
regarded as resources for bread. Besides the number who succeed in art
and literature being necessarily extremely small, it seems pretty
certain that no great achievements, in the domains of art and
imagination, can be looked for from either men or women who labour there
to supply their lower wants, or for any other reason than the pure love
of their work. While they toil in any one of the arts of expression, if
they are not engrossed by some loftier meaning, the highest which they
will end with expressing will be, the need of bread."

"True--quite true. I must not think of any of those higher departments
of labour, because, even if I were qualified, what I want is not
employment, but money. I am anxious to earn some money, Maria. We are
very poor. Edward is trying, one way and another, to earn money to live
upon, till his practice comes back to him, as he is for ever trusting it
will. I wish to earn something too, if it be ever so little. Can you
tell me of no way?"

"I believe I should no