them; in fact they must soon draw on the little sum--already dipped
into to-day, for Ascott--which had been produced by the sale of the
Stowbury furniture. That sale, they now found had been a mistake; and
they half feared whether the whole change from Stowbury to London had
not been a mistake--one of those sad errors in judgment which we all
commit sometimes, and have to abide by, and make the best of, and
learn from if we can. Happy those who "Dinna greet ower spilt
milk"--a proverb wise as cheerful, which Hilary, knowing well who it
came from, repeated to Johanna to comfort her--teaches a second brave
lesson, how to avoid spilling the milk a second time. And then they
consulted anxiously about what was to be done to earn money.

Teaching presented itself as the only resource. In those days women's
work and women's rights had not been discussed so freely as at
present. There was a strong feeling that the principal thing required
was our duties--owed to ourselves, our home, our family and friends.
There was a deep conviction--now, alas! slowly disappearing--that a
woman, single or married, should never throw herself out of the safe
circle of domestic life till the last extremity of necessity; that it
is wiser to keep or help to keep a home, by learning how to expend
its income, cook its dinners, make and mend its clothes, and, by the
law that "prevention is better than cure," studying all those
preservative means of holding a family together--as women, and women
alone, can--than to dash into men's sphere of trades and professions,
thereby, in most instances, fighting an unequal battle, and coming
out of it maimed, broken, unsexed; turned into beings that are
neither men nor women, with the faults and corresponding sufferings
of both, and the compensations of neither.

"I don't see," said poor Hilary, "what I can do but teach. And oh, if