"You say we have never written you a word of encouragement. But don't you think the fault-finders would be sure to speak first, and loudest? I even, in my loneliness, am able to lend my copies to four, who all look forward to their turn with pleasure. (They get their pleasure for nothing, and I was not quite sure you would approve! until I found you would be willing to lend your Talmud!) "On one point I grumble and find fault. "Most of those works which you say you want us to read, I have read; but if I had had to pay the price at which you propose to publish them, they would have cost me £3 and I could not have afforded it; because, much as I delighted in them, I longed for certain other books as well. Many an intelligent working man with a family is poorer than I am. "I quite thoroughly and heartily sympathise with your contempt for advertising (as it is abused at present, anyway). But I think all good books should be cheap. I would make bad ones as dear as you like. "Was it not Socrates alone of the great Greeks who would put no price on his wisdom?--and Christ 'taught daily in their streets.' I do assure you there are plenty of us teachable enough, if only any one capable of teaching could get near enough, who will never, in this world, be able to afford 'a doctor's fee.' "I wonder--if it be wrong to take interest--of what use my very small savings could be to me in old age? Would it be worth while for working women to save at all? (Signed) "A Working Woman." No, certainly not wrong. The wrong is in the poor wages of good work, which make it impossible to buy books at a proper price, or to save what would be enough for old age. Books should not be cheaper, but work should be dearer. A young lady writing to me the other day to ask what I really wanted girls to do, I answered as follows, requesting her to copy the answer, that it might serve once for all. I print it accordingly, as perhaps a more simple statement than the one given in 'Sesame and Lilies.' Women's work is,-- I. To please people. II. To feed them in dainty ways. III. To clothe them. IV. To keep them orderly. V. To teach them. I. To please.--A woman must be a pleasant creature. Be sure that people like the room better with you in it than out of it; and take all pains to get the power of sympathy, and the habit of it.