Though Jane had such a practical turn of mind, and such an excellent education, it must not be supposed that she knew much of the world.  Educate women as you will, that knowledge is rarely attained at twenty-three; and she had lived so much in a Utopia of her own, fancying that things that were right were always expedient, and that they should always be valued for their intrinsic worth, that she did not see the difficulties of her situation as clearly as many people who had not half her understanding.  She and her uncle had been too apt to talk of things as they ought to be, and not as they actually were.  With all Jane’s quiet good sense, there were points on which she could be enthusiastic, and on this evening the successful cousin was struck by the warm expressions of an optimism in which he could not share, uttered by one who had good cause for complaint and dissatisfaction.

When the cousins went together to the Bank of Scotland on the following day, and were shown into Mr. Rennie’s private room, Jane’s hopes were somewhat damped by the details she received about the situation.  The duties were even greater than she had supposed, consisting in the active and complete superintendence of a great many female servants, and a slighter control over a still larger number of female keepers, who also acted as housemaids and chambermaids; the control of the workroom, so as to see that there was no waste, extravagance, or pilfering there; the arrangements necessary in the cooking and distribution of such large quantities of food, so that each should have enough, and yet that there should be no opportunity of theft; and the watchfulness required to prevent any of the girls employed in the establishment from flirting with any of the convalescent gentlemen.  The wages given by the directors had been too low to keep servants long in the place, or to secure a good class of girls who would be above dishonesty or other weaknesses; and this made the duties of their superintendent particularly irksome; while there was a good deal to be done for the patients themselves, though not so much by the second as by the upper matron.

All this seemed a formidable amount of work for one head and one pair of eyes to do; and when Jane was told that the salary was 30 pounds a-year, and that so many applications had been and were likely to be sent in, that great interest was necessary for success, she was by no means so decided on sending in hers.  Even the privileges annexed to the situation, of a small bedroom for herself, and a parlour shared by two others, with a fortnight’s holidays in the year, though very necessary to prevent the second matron being removed speedily into one of the wards, did not seem so tempting as to revive Jane’s last night’s enthusiasm.

“Surely,” said she, “the payment is very small for the work and the responsibility.”

“There is so much competition for a thing of this kind,” said Mr. Rennie.  “There are so many women in Scotland who have too little to live on, or nothing at all, that they will gladly snatch at anything that will give them food and lodging, and the smallest of salaries.  I know of a situation of 12 pounds a-year that received forty-five applications from reduced gentlewomen.  The payment is never in proportion to the work.”