chel, thoughtfully, "who only needed
patience to permit their convictions to ripen. Then I understand you, it
was a rejection on negative not positive grounds?"

"Precisely; I do not murmur, but it has been the blight of my life."

"And yet," said Rachel, consolingly, "it may enable you to work with
more freedom."

"Since you encourage me to believe so, Miss Curtis, I will hope it, but
I have met with much suspicion."

"I can well believe it," said Rachel; "even some of the most superior
persons refuse to lay their hands to any task unless they are certified
of the religious opinions of their coadjutors, which seems to me like
a mason's refusing to work at a wall with a man who liked Greek
architecture when he preferred Gothic!"

If Rachel had been talking to Ermine she might have been asked whether
the dissimilarity might not be in the foundations, or in the tempering
of the mortar, but Mr. Mauleverer only commended her liberal spirit, and
she thought it high time to turn from this subject to the immediate one
in hand. He had wished to discuss the plan with her, he said, before
drawing it up, and in effect she had cogitated so much upon it that her
ideas came forth with more than her usual fluency and sententiousness.
The scheme was that an asylum should be opened under the superintendence
of Mr. Mauleverer himself, in which young girls might be placed to learn
handicrafts that might secure their livelihood, in especial, perhaps,
wood engraving and printing. It might even be possible, in time, to
render the whole self-supporting, suppose by the publication of a little
illustrated periodical, the materials for which might be supplied by
those interested in the institution.

If anything could add to Rachel's delight it was this last proposition.
In all truth and candour, the relief to the victims to lace-making was
her primary object, far before all besides, and the longing desire
of her heart for years seemed about to be fulfilled; but a domestic
magazine, an outlet to all the essays on Curatocult, on Helplessness,
on Female Folly, and Female Rights, was a development of the plan beyond
her wildest hopes! No dull editor to hamper, reject or curtail! She
should be as happy, and as well able to expand as the Invalid herself.

Mr. Mauleverer had brought a large packet of letters with him, in all
manner of hands. There were some testimonials from a German university,
and letters from German professors in a compromise