suppose hundreds of young girls are from one reason or other left
just in this way, and have, without any previous preparation in their
education and habits, to face the question, How can I get a living?

"I assure you it is a serious question for a young girl who has grown
up in the easy manner in which I had. My stepfather had always been a
cheery, kindly, generous man, one of those who love to see people
enjoy themselves, and to have things done handsomely, and had kept
house in a free, abundant, hospitable manner; so that when I came to
look myself over in relation to the great uses of life, I could make
out very little besides expensive tastes and careless habits.

"I had been to the very best schools, but then I had studied, as most
girls in easy circumstances do, without a thought of using my
knowledge for any practical purpose. I could speak very fair English;
but how I did it, or why, I didn't know,--all the technical rules of
grammar had passed from my head like a dream. I could play a little on
the piano, and sing a few songs; but I did not know enough of music to
venture to propose myself as a teacher; and so with every other study.
All the situations of profit in the profession of teaching are now
crowded and blocked by girls who have been studying for that express
object,--and what could I hope among them?

"My mother-in-law was a smart, enterprising, driving woman of the
world, who told all her acquaintance that, of course, she should give
me a home, although I was no kind of relation to her, and who gave me
to understand that I was under infinite obligations to her on this
account, and must pay for the privilege by making myself generally
useful. I soon found that this meant doing a servant's work without
wages. During six months I filled, I may say, the place of a
seamstress and nursery governess to some very ungoverned children,
varying with occasional weeks of servant's work, when either the table
girl or the cook left a place vacant. For all this I received my
board, and some cast-off dresses and underclothes to make over for
myself. I was tired of this, and begged my stepmother to find me some
place where I could earn my own living. She was astonished and
indignant at the demand. When Providence had provided me a good home,
under respectable protection, she said, why should I ask to leave it?
For her part, she thought the situation of a young lady making herself
generally useful in domestic life,