rest is not rest, but a painful effort of the repressed currents to
recover their circulating power--so different from the delightful
sensation of wholesome rest after physical exertion.

At first she felt it almost insupportable. I have heard her say that it
seemed at times as if she would have given years of her existence to be
allowed to get up and walk up and down the room for a few minutes. The
sensation was so insupportable. That craving desire of the body for what
it is in want of--be it water, be it bread, be it rest, be it change of
posture--is so dreadful in its urgency. The most abominable tortures men
have in their wickedness invented are founded upon this fact--tortures
that render the black history of inquisitors yet blacker: and here it
was, in one at least of its numerous forms, daily inflicted upon a set
of helpless young women, by a person who thought herself perfectly
justifiable, and whose conscience never pricked her in the least.

Such is negligent moral habit.

Oh! the delight at meal-times--to spring up, I was going to say--I meant
to _get_ up--for there was no _spring_ left in these poor stiffened
frames. Oh! the delight when the eye of that superintendent was no
longer watching the busy circle, and her voice calling to order any one
who durst just to raise a head, and pause in the unintermitting toil.
Oh! the delight to get up and come to breakfast, or dinner, or tea.

They had not much appetite when they came to their meals to be sure.
There was only one thing they were always ready to enjoy, and that was
their tea. That blessed and long abused tea; which has done more to
sweeten private life with its gentle warmth and excitement, than any
cordial that has ever been invented. It is but a cordial, however; it is
not a nourishment; though a little sugar, and wretched blue milk, such
as London milk used to be, may be added to it. Most of the young ladies,
however, preferred it without these additions; they found it more
stimulating so, I believe, poor things!

Such nourishment as they received, it is plain, would ill supply the
rapid exhaustion of their employment. One by one in the course of the
season they sickened and dropped off; some died out and out; some, alas!
tempted by suffering and insupportable fatigue, or by that vanity and
levity which seems to be too common a result with many girls living
together, did worse. There would have been a heavy record against her
every June, if Mis