Her scheme was as follows: After thinking over our financial
condition and puzzling her brain to find out some way of bettering
it, she had come to the conclusion that she would make some money
by her own exertions, to help defray our household expenses. She
never had made any money, but that was no reason why she should not
begin. It was too bad that I should have to toil and toil and not
make nearly enough money after all. So she would go to work and
earn something with her own hands.

She had heard of an establishment in the city, where ladies of
limited means, or transiently impecunious, could, in a very quiet
and private way, get sewing to do. They could thus provide for
their needs without any one but the officers of the institution
knowing anything about it.

So Euphemia went to this place, and she got some work. It was not
a very large bundle, but it was larger than she had been accustomed
to carry, and, what was perfectly dreadful, it was wrapped up in a
newspaper! When Euphemia told me the story, she said that this was
too much for her courage. She could not go on the cars, and
perhaps meet people belonging to our church, with a newspaper
bundle under her arm.

But her genius for expedients saved her from this humiliation. She
had to purchase some sewing-cotton, and some other little things,
and when she had bought them, she handed her bundle to the woman
behind the counter, and asked her if she would not be so good as to
have that wrapped up with the other things. It was a good deal to
ask, she knew, and the woman smiled, for the articles she had
bought would not make a package as large as her hand. However, her