Women never will and never can become highly efficient and continue so for any long period on the salaries which they at present receive, or even on the salaries with which, as a rule, they would be contented if they could get them. Vitality and freshness of mind, when youth is gone, cannot be maintained within the four walls of the class room or office, on incomes too small to admit of varied social intercourse, or of practical beneficence. Without the latter power the middle-aged unmarried woman can feel that she has small claim to live, and, in such a case, if her daily work does not in itself call for its exercise, she has little desire to. What is our standard of living, then? and how much more will it cost us to maintain that standard when the whole effort to maintain it falls upon ourselves? To answer these questions we must have definite accounts of expenditure. The samples that I have to give are all more or less imperfect as regards their form of presentation. The teaching profession is the one from which naturally it will be easiest to obtain returns. Recruited as it is from every rank of life except the aristocracy, and charged with the training for every rank of life--except, again, the aristocracy, who owe little of their education to their governesses--it should present to us through its accounts a corresponding variety of standard of living. It should do so; but I venture to predict that it will not. My first three budgets were given to me several years ago. They give the expenditure of three assistant mistresses teaching in high schools and boarding during term time in private houses. No. 1 gives the expenditure for one year; No. 2 the expenditure for two successive years; No. 3 the average expenditure for six years. Side by side with them I place the budget for one year of another high school mistress (No. 4) living in lodgings--which I give afterwards in greater detail. TABLE I. _Accounts of Expenditure of three High School Mistresses boarding in Private Houses, and of one High School Mistress in Furnished Lodgings._ AMOUNT SPENT ON