own old
enough to understand what they were, and how mortifying to an honorable
self-respect. But I took to the needle with almost as great a liking--at
least at the beginning--as to my books. The desire to assist my mother
was also an absorbing one. I was as anxious to make good wages as she
was; for I now consumed more stuff for dresses, as well as a more costly
material, and in other ways increased the family expenses. It was the
same with Fred and Jane,--they were growing older, and added to the
general cost of housekeeping, but without being able to contribute
anything toward meeting it.

A girl in my station in life feels an honorable ambition to clothe
herself and pay for her board, as soon as she reaches eighteen years of
age. This praiseworthy desire seems to prevail universally with those
who have no portion to expect from parents, if their domestic training
has been of the right character. It does not spring from exacting
demands of either father or mother, but from a natural feeling of duty
and propriety, and a commendable pride to be thus far independent. If
able to earn money at any reputable employment, such girls eagerly
embrace it. They pay their parents from their weekly wages as
punctually as if boarding with a stranger, and it is to many of them a
serious grief when dull times come on and prevent them from earning
sufficient to continue these payments.

So unjustly low is the established scale of female wages, that girls of
this class are rarely able to save anything. They earn from two to three
dollars per week, and in thousands of cases not more than half of the
larger sum. It is because of these extremely small wages that the price
of board for a working-woman is established at so low a figure,--being
graduated to her ability to pay. But low as the price may be, it
consumes the chief part of her earnings, leaving her little to bestow on
the apparel in which every American woman feels a proper pride in
clothing herself. She must dress neatly at least, no matter how the
doing so may stint her in respect of all bodily or mental recreation;
for, with her, appearance is everything. A mean dress would in many
places exclude her from employment,--while a neat one would insure it.
Then, if working with other girls in factories, or binderies, or other
places where girls are largely employed, and where even a fashionable
style of dress is generally to be observed, she feels it necessary to
maintain a styl