r report, practical and sound as it was, proved
very distasteful to Bessie.

They advised the employment of a sighted shopman, the substitution of
some easier and more accurate method of keeping accounts, the payment of
all money received into the bank, and an arrangement under which Mr. and
Mrs. Levy should receive a fixed salary in lieu of commission on sales.
They also intimated their belief that the time had come when the Society
must look to its director simply for general management, and must be
prepared to employ a thoroughly efficient staff in the shop and
workrooms.

The report really amounted to a suggestion to supersede her faithful
manager; a step to which Bessie and Levy were equally opposed. Bessie
hoped to avert it by raising money to pay the debts, and open a West-end
shop; and as the Committee was powerless without the alliance of the
Lady President, there was at any rate a reprieve.

To obviate one of the difficulties arising from want of funds, the
Bishop offered L40 a year as the wages of a sighted shopman, in addition
to his subscription of L5.

He announces this in a letter written from Queen Anne Street on the 22d
May 1862, to Bessie at Chichester. His offer was gratefully accepted by
the Committee. It was also arranged that donations and subscriptions
should be paid into the banking account; and not, as hitherto, used as
soon as received in the payment of bills and wages. But the director
was unwilling to relinquish any of his duties, and Bessie considered
that when her own health, which was rapidly improving, should be quite
re-established, the assistance she could give would lighten his duties
and responsibilities.

Under these circumstances there seemed no pressing need of reform in the
management. Bessie had one remedy for all the suggestions of the
Sub-Committee; and this was to plead both in public and in private for
money and custom. In 1863 there were articles and letters in _The
Times_, and in all the principal London journals, and a paper in Miss
Yonge's _Monthly Packet_ by Mrs. Hooper, who had previously written on
the subject in _Household Words_. Mr. Gladstone was asked to speak at
the annual meeting to be held in May, and replied:

11 DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL, _17th March 1863_.

MADAM--It would be with so much regret that I should decline a
request proceeding from you, that although uncertain whether my
public duties may permit me to