omen met to make or to alter over garments, and devise
means to render the poor more comfortable. There were so many miserable
homes, so many inefficient wives and mothers, who were ignorant of the
commonest principles of economy. They could live on meal-mush, they
could go in rags, but the science of thrift was utterly unknown in many
instances.

Sylvie had done her share of church work as a growing maiden. Every year
there had been some mission, and a sewing-school.

"And yet it doesn't seem to do much good," said she. "The girls learn to
hem a handkerchief, which a sewing-machine can do in ten seconds: they
sew a few patches together, and perhaps make an apron. By the next
winter they have forgotten all about it. And some of their mothers do
not seem to care."

"The mothers need educating," Miss Morgan began, with a decisive nod of
the head. "They were married out of shops and factories, and know very
little, and have brought up their children to know less. I'm not one of
the kind who can see no good in the world's progress, and who want to go
back to the days of spinning-wheels, wax polish for tables and chairs,
and a day spent every week scouring the brass andirons and candlesticks
and door-knobs, and various other matters; but I do think we have gone
to the other extreme. Women dawdle away half their lives. It is of no
use to make clothes, you can buy them cheaper; it is of no use to mend,
to do this or that, and so they do nothing."

"I was struck with a contrast I saw yesterday," returned Sylvie. "I had
occasion to go to the Webbers,--you know the little cottage on Alden
Street, Miss Morgan, where they always have such pretty flowers in the
window. Mr. Webber works at satchel-making, and even in good times did
not earn very high wages. They have a garden, in which they raise the
most wonderful succession of crops; they keep some chickens, which they
manage to have laying most of the time; and they have five children. It
was quite late in the afternoon. Mrs. Webber sat by the window, making
lace, on a cushion, at which she realizes about a dollar a week;
Christine, the eldest girl, who still goes to school, was crocheting a
baby's hood,--she does a good deal of work for Mrs. Burnett's
fancy-store, and yet is a very smart scholar; Amelie, the next one, was
darning the stockings; the boy, who comes third, was out-doors, tidying
up the chicken-house; and the two little girls were in the corner,
cutting and sewin