going as far as cruet-stands, to my friends.  I did not feel equal to springing pencil-cases and cruet-stands on my acquaintances, so did not enter on that line of business, and similar failures in numerous efforts made me feel, as so many others have found, that the world-oyster is hard to open.  However, I was resolute to build a nest for my wee daughter, my mother, and myself, and the first thing to do was to save my monthly pittance to buy furniture.  I found a tiny house in Colby Road, Upper Norwood, near the Scotts, who were more than good to me, and arranged to take it in the spring, and then accepted a loving invitation to Folkestone, where my grandmother and two aunts were living, to look for work there.  And found it.  The vicar wanted a governess, and one of my aunts suggested me as a stop-gap, and thither I went with my little Mabel, our board and lodging being payment for my work.  I became head cook, governess, and nurse, glad enough to have found “something to do” that enabled me to save my little income.  But I do not think I will ever take to cooking for a permanence; broiling and frying are all right, and making pie-crust is rather pleasant; but saucepans and kettles blister your hands.  There is a charm in making a stew, to the unaccustomed cook, from the excitement of wondering what the result will be, and whether any flavour save that of onions will survive the competition in the mixture.  On the whole, my cooking (strictly by cookery book) was a success, but my sweeping was bad, for I lacked muscle.  This curious episode came to an abrupt end, for one of my little pupils fell ill with diphtheria, and I was transformed from cook to nurse.  Mabel I despatched to her grandmother, who adored her with a love condescendingly returned by the little fairy of three, and never was there a prettier picture than the red-gold curls nestled against the white, the baby-grace in exquisite contrast with the worn stateliness of her tender nurse.  Scarcely was my little patient out of danger when the youngest boy fell ill of scarlet fever; we decided to isolate him on the top floor, and I cleared away carpets and curtains, hung sheets over the doorways and kept them wet with chloride of lime, shut myself up there with the boy, having my meals left on the landing; and when all risk was over, proudly handed back my charge, the disease touching no one else in the house.

And now the spring of 1874 had come, and in a few weeks my mother and I were to set up house together.  How we had planned all, and had knitted on the new life together we anticipated to the old one we remembered!  How we had discussed Mabel’s education, and the share which should fall to each!  Day-dreams; day-dreams! never to be realised.