losing courage, had put their shoulders to the wheel, and had actually
set up as dressmakers at Hadleigh, carrying on their business in a most
masterly fashion, until the unexpected return of their relative, Sir
Harry Challoner, from Australia, with plenty of money at his disposal,
broke up the dressmaking business, and reinstated them at Glen Cottage.

A few of their friends had been much offended with them, but as it was
understood that Lady Fitzroy had spoken warmly of their moral courage
and perseverance, it had become the fashion to praise them. Aunt Agatha
had often quoted them to me, saying she had never met more charming
girls, and adding more than once how thoroughly she respected their
independence, and of course in recalling the Challoners I thought I
should have added my crowning argument.

There was so much, too, that I longed to say in favour of my theory. The
love of little children was very strong with me. I had often been pained
as I walked through the streets at seeing tired children dragged along
or shaken angrily by some coarse, uneducated nurse. It had always seemed
rather a pitiful idea to me that children from their infancy should be
in hourly contact with rough, menial natures. "Surely," I would say to
myself, "the mother's place must be in her nursery; she can find no
higher duty than this, to watch over her little ones; even if her
position or rank hinder her constant supervision, why need she relegate
her maternal duties to uneducated women? Are there no poor gentlewomen
in the world who would gladly undertake such a work from very love, and
who would refuse to believe for one moment they were losing caste in
discharging one of the holiest and purest duties in life?

"What an advantage to the children," I imagined myself saying in answer
to some objection on Uncle Keith's part, never dreaming that all this
eloquence would be silenced by masculine cunning.

"What an advantage to these little creatures to hear English pure and
undefiled from their cradles, and to be trained to habits of refinement
and good manners by merely instinctively following the example before
their eyes. Children are such copyists, one shudders to think of these
impressionable little beings being permitted by their natural guardians
to take their earliest lessons from some uneducated person.

"Women are crying out for work, Uncle Keith," I continued, carrying my
warfare into a fresh quarter; but, alas! this, with the