ailed in the
small stationery business three years ago, are worse, if possible, than
mine.

Not that I mind so much for myself; women, in all ways of life, and
especially in my dressmaking way, learn, I think, to be more patient
than men. What I dread is Robert's despondency, and the hard struggle
he will have in this cruel city to get his bread, let alone making
money enough to marry me. So little as poor people want to set up in
housekeeping and be happy together, it seems hard that they can't get it
when they are honest and hearty, and willing to work. The clergyman said
in his sermon last Sunday evening that all things were ordered for the
best, and we are all put into the stations in life that are properest
for us. I suppose he was right, being a very clever gentleman who fills
the church to crowding; but I think I should have understood him better
if I had not been very hungry at the time, in consequence of my own
station in life being nothing but plain needlewoman.

March 4th. Mary Mallinson came down to my room to take a cup of tea with
me. I read her bits of Robert's letter, to show her that, if she has her
troubles, I have mine too; but I could not succeed in cheering her.
She says she is born to misfortune, and that, as long back as she can
remember, she has never had the least morsel of luck to be thankful for.
I told her to go and look in my glass, and to say if she had nothing
to be thankful for then; for Mary is a very pretty girl, and would look
still prettier if she could be more cheerful and dress neater. However,
my compliment did no good. She rattled her spoon impatiently in her
tea-cup, and said, "If I was only as good a hand at needle-work as you
are, Anne, I would change faces with the ugliest girl in London." "Not
you!" says I, laughing. She looked at me for a moment, and shook her
head, and was out of the room before I could get up and stop her. She
always runs off in that way when she is going to cry, having a kind of
pride about letting other people see her in tears.

March 5th. A fright about Mary. I had not seen her all day, as she does
not work at the same place where I do; and in the evening she never came
down to have tea with me, or sent me word to go to her; so, just before
I went to bed, I ran upstairs to say good-night.

She did not answer when I knocked; and when I stepped softly in the room
I saw her in bed, asleep, with her work not half done, lying about the
room in the un