was to be a public one, therefore of great importance.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

WOMEN'S WORK.

The night before commencement Miss Ashton had reserved for the reading
of notices of woman's work and success. This she did at that time,
because she wished her pupils to carry away a full belief not only in
their own abilities, but also in the position which, with diligence,
these abilities would enable them to reach.

The whole school gathered in the hall. Miss Ashton had requested that
the notices should be handed in to her a few days previous. Now she
said, "Young ladies, I am both surprised and pleased at the readiness
and faithfulness with which you have responded to my request. I have
here," lifting a pretty, ribbon-tied basket, "at least one hundred
different notices! Just think! _one hundred_ instances in which women
have tried, and have succeeded in earning not only a respectable, but
a successful livelihood. This fact speaks so well for itself, that all
remaining for me to do is to read you some of these notices. I must
make a selection from among them, and the first one I will read I am
sure will interest you:--

"'Mlle. Sarmisa Bileesco, the first woman admitted to the bar in
France, is said to have taken the highest rank in a class of five
hundred men at the Ecole du Droit, Paris, where she studied after
receiving the degree of Bachelor of Letters and Science in Bucharest.
She has begun to practise law in the latter city, where her father is
a banker.'

"Here is another one in the same profession:--

"'Mrs. Tel Sone is a leading lawyer in Japan, and has a large and
profitable practice.'

"'Miss Jean Gordon of Cincinnati, upon whom will be conferred the
degree of Ph.G. at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, has earned
the highest average ever attained by any woman graduate of that
institution. Out of one hundred and eighty-four graduates of this
year, only six obtained the highest rating of "distinguished." Miss
Gordon was one of the six. She was the only woman in her class, and
had to contend with bright young men.'

"Miss Gordon, I think," remarked Miss Ashton, "has a distinguished
future before her.

"'Female professors and lecturers are to be introduced into the
Michigan University at Ann Arbor.'

"'Two female medical graduates have been appointed house surgeons at
two English hospitals.'

"'An Ohio girl discovered a way of transforming a barrel of petroleum
into ten thousand cubic feet of