f the most
haphazard kind; their breeding was not a little defective; but a certain
tact, common to the family, enabled them to make the very most of
themselves, so that they more than passed muster among the middle-class
young ladies of the town. As long as they sojourned on the borders of
St. Luke's, nothing was farther from the thoughts of any one of them
than the idea that they might have to exert themselves to earn their own
living; it was only of late that certain emphatic representations on the
part of their father had led Mrs. Cartwright to consider which of the
girls was good for anything. Amy, the eldest, had rather a weak
constitution; it was plain that neither in body nor in mind could she be
called upon to exert herself. Eleanor who came next, had musical
faculties; after terrific family debates it was decided that she must
give lessons on the piano, and a first pupil was speedily found. Barbara
was good for nothing whatever, save to spend money on her personal
adornment; considering that she was the plainest of the family--her
sisters having repeatedly decided the point--her existence appeared on
the whole singularly superfluous. Then came Jessie. Of Jessie her father
had repeatedly said that she was the only girl of his who had brains;
those brains, if existent, must now be turned to account. But Jessie had
long since torn up her school-books into curl-papers, and, as learning
accumulated outside her head, it vanished from the interior. When she
declared that arithmetic was all but a mystery to her, and that she had
forgotten what French she ever knew, there was an unprecedented outbreak
of parental wrath: this was the result of all that had been spent on her
education! She must get it back as best she could, for, as sure as fate,
she should be packed off as a governess. Look at Emily Hood: why, that
girl was keeping herself, and, most likely, paying her mother's
butcher's bill into the bargain, and her advantages had been fewer than
Jessie's. After storms beyond description, Jessie did what her mother
called 'buckle to,' but progress was slight. 'You must get Emily Hood to
help you when she comes home for her holidays,' was Mrs. Cartwright's
hopeful suggestion one night that the girl had fairly broken down and
given way to sobs and tears. Emily was written to, and promised aid. The
remaining daughter, Geraldine, was held to be too young as yet for
responsible undertakings; she was only seventeen, and, besi