Quite lately, the subject of some kind of provision for {158} poor governesses who are sick, or have to subsist during long holidays on the small balance of their quarterly wages, has occupied public attention, and it would be well indeed if means could be found for giving the healthy temporary employment, and the weakly a quiet home where their strength might be restored without the sacrifice of independence. There are others, however, for which such help is equally needed—the dressmaker, or the shop-woman, on whom long hours of tedious and often of exhausting toil in an unhealthy atmosphere, has begun to tell too severely; the servant of good character and respectable habits, who is not so ill as to be admitted to a hospital, and yet is breaking down in strength, and regards with dread the necessity for going into some obscure lodging, where her surplusage of wages will barely pay for rent and food during two or three weeks enforced idleness; the girl who has learnt some ill-paid business, which affords her no more than a mere contribution to the family funds, and leaves no margin for extra food or medicine, or the fresh air that is as important as either. Any careful observer standing at the door of a general hospital, and watching the throng of out-patients waiting wearily to see the doctor, will be able to distinguish a score of cases for which a temporary rest with wholesome food and the sympathy and loving-kindness that refresh the soul would bring true healing.