For she was by no means unequal to feminine pursuits. She could be what is called _useful_ at home; the inevitable sock-darning which falls to a girl’s portion in a family of many boys was not neglected; though carried on simultaneously with the mental exercise of learning German verbs. An exquisitely fine piece of tatting remains to testify to skilfulness of fingers, as well as to the perseverance she more gladly devoted to intellectual efforts. Such was the interleaved New Testament, a monument of patient toil, into which she copied in very small writing whole passages of comment from the Fathers and other writers. So full of work was the home life that there can have been scarcely any leisure; but a few so-called holidays were spent in rubbing brasses in the ancient city churches. There was full occupation even for the strenuous spirit of Dorothea Beale, in the interests and affairs of home, but a wider field for her energies was to open with the gates of Queen’s College in 1848. CHAPTER II QUEEN’S COLLEGE ‘Long shall the College live and grow, When we three sleep in peace, And scholars better far than we Its glory shall increase.’ _Eliza Beale on the Jubilee of Queen’s College._ Mr. Llewelyn Davis rightly said that the establishment of Queen’s College was an epoch in women’s education. Like that of all really great institutions, its development and growth were an outcome of the needs of the time. But the movement which led up to it was ‘not from beneath but from above. It was compassion in the hearts of a few good men which moved them to help a forlorn class of solitary and ill-paid workers, that seemed the immediate cause. A little band of men full of faith and good works came to the help of a man whose influence was quiet but strong.’ The good man of whom Miss Beale thus spoke was David Laing, who was vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Kentish Town, from 1847 to 1858. Good he was, in many senses of the word: a man of education, wide culture, and personal force. He showed both large-hearted charity and wisdom in dealing with the needs of those for whom it was his duty to care, and he was ready to make any self-sacrifice required in carrying out his schemes for them. In 1843 he became Honorary Secretary of the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution, a position he occupied till his death in 1860, and the lamentable state of women’s education, particularly that of professing teachers, was brought forcibly before him. The society, which had had a kind of passive existence only for two or three years, began at once under Mr. Laing to develop manifold activities. Within a year the work of help for which it was primarily intended was in full swing, and its scope of usefulness was enlarged by the establishment of a registry and a scheme for granting diplomas to governesses.