r would she be able to free her brothers and
sisters from the yoke whose weight she knew full well because of her own
eagerness to throw it off. Unselfish as her father was selfish, she
thought quite as much of their welfare as of her own. Therefore when, at
the age of nineteen, a situation as lady's companion was offered to her,
neither tears nor entreaties could alter her resolution to accept it. She
entered at once upon her new duties, and with them her career as woman
may be said to have begun.

CHAPTER II.

FIRST YEARS OF WORK.

1778-1785.

Mary Wollstonecraft did not become famous at once. She began her career
as humbly as many a less gifted woman. Like the heroes of old, she had
tasks allotted her before she could attain the goal of her ambition. And
Heracles in his twelve labors, Jason in search of the Golden Fleece,
Sigurd in pursuit of the treasure, did not have greater hardships to
endure or dangers to overcome than she had before she won for herself
independence and fame.

It is difficult for a young man without money, influential friends, or
professional education to make his way in the world. With a woman placed
in similar circumstances the difficulty is increased a hundred-fold. We
of to-day, when government and other clerkships are open to women, cannot
quite realize their helplessness a few generations back. In Mary
Wollstonecraft's time those whose birth and training had unfitted them
for the more menial occupations--who could neither bake nor scrub--had
but two resources. They must either become governesses or ladies'
companions. In neither case was their position enviable. They ranked as
little better than upper servants. Mary's first appearance on the
world-stage, therefore, was not brilliant.

The lady with whom she went to live was a Mrs. Dawson, a widow who had
but one child, a grown-up son. Her residence was in Bath. Mary must then
have given at least signs of the beauty which did not reach its full
development until many years later, her sorrows had not entirely
destroyed her natural gayety, and she was only nineteen years old. The
mission in Bath in those days of young girls of her age was to dance and
to flirt, to lose their hearts and to find husbands, to gossip, to listen
to the music, to show themselves in the Squares and Circus and on the
Parades, or, sometimes, when they were seriously inclined, to drink the
waters. Mary's was to cater to the caprices of a cross-grained, p