a dressmaker, and who showed such taste and skill
that she soon commanded a salary of two thousand dollars for overseeing
an establishment. It is pleasant to add that she married a rich man of
refined tastes, and that she made a beautiful home for him, a centre for
all lovers of the fine arts.

A thousand occupations are now open to women. You can be a type-writer,
or a stenographer, or a private secretary, or saleswoman. You can keep a
bakery, or do city shopping for country ladies. But whatever you do,
keep these principles in mind:--

1. Do not drift into any work. Circumstances may force you to do
something unsuited to you, and then you must do your best; but where
even a narrow choice is left, try to weigh your own tastes and talents
truly, and choose something to which you are willing to give your
energies, and in which, if you work hard, there is reasonable hope you
will succeed.

2. Whether you like your work or not, make it something more than a
means of self-support. We all want "a broad margin to our lives," and we
may do our great life-work entirely outside of our work for bread. But
most of us necessarily put so much of our strength as well as our time
into earning our livelihood, that, if we are the women we ought to be,
that too must express our nobleness. We may not like our work, but we
can make it worth doing, even if we never gain a penny from it. Milton
was no doubt sorry to receive only L15 for "Paradise Lost," but we
should all be willing to starve in a garret to do work like that. It
ought to be the same with the humblest occupation. We should like to
earn something by it, but first we wish to have it worth more than
money, and it will be so if we work in the right spirit.

VI.

OCCUPATIONS FOR THE RICH.

In one of George Eliot's letters she says that her chief hope from the
higher education of women is that they will do much unproductive labor
which at present is either badly done or not done at all. But she
thought it would be unbecoming in her to say much publicly on that
subject, for she could not fail to know that her own genius set her
apart from other women and gave her a definite work to do.

For those who have simply many good powers without any dominating one
the case is different. The poor must use their gifts to gain bread; but
if they do not make their occupation the medium of higher work, they are
no better than the idle rich. The rich, instead of being excused from