keep than 5,000 pounds, though if they had been sold they might have
brought only half that amount. You see I had a good start. I like the
work, and it likes me. I am a richer, a happier, and a more useful woman,
than I could have been if I had had 20,000 pounds all left me in a lump."

"This is very different, indeed, from our case," said Jane. "It is the
want of capital that I feel so very hard. I could make something of
capital."

"I suppose that for you, Miss Melville, with nothing but youth, health,
and a stout heart, there is nothing but a governess's situation
to be thought of. Society seems to say to gentlewomen who have not
enough to live on, 'Teach or marry;' and the governess market and the
marriage market are both sadly overstocked. People have not all got a
taste for either alternative. Here am I, a sensible, well-disposed
woman, but yet I never could teach in my life, and I never had any wish
to marry."

"The world is large," said Jane; "there are thousands of fields of
labour. Uncle did not wish us to be governesses, I am quite sure; he
did not educate us for it; and I do not think he wished us to marry
either."

"He should have left you a small competence--not enough to tempt
others, but to save you from being tempted yourself," said Miss
Thomson.

"I dare say he made a great mistake; but I think he fancied that the
strong necessity for effort would stimulate us to exertion. To vegetate
on a small annuity would not be so pleasant as to earn even the