altogether occupied from the age of fifteen to seventy-two, in doing other people's wills instead of her own, and seeking other people's good instead of her own: nor did I ever hear on any occasion of her doing harm to a human being, except by saving two hundred and some odd pounds for her relations; in consequence of which some of them, after her funeral, did not speak to the rest for several months. Two hundred and odd pounds;--it might have been more; but I used to hear of little loans to the relations occasionally; and besides, Anne would sometimes buy a quite unjustifiably expensive silk gown. People in her station of life are always so improvident. Two hundred odd pounds at all events she had laid by, in her fifty-seven years of unselfish labour. Actually twenty ten-pound notes. I heard the other day, to my great satisfaction, of the approaching marriage of a charming girl;--but to my dissatisfaction, that the approach was slow. "We can't marry yet"--said she;--"you know, we can't possibly marry on five hundred a year." People in that station of life are always so provident. Two hundred odd pounds,--that was what the third Fors, in due alliance with her sisters, thought fit to reward our Annie with, for fifty years of days' work and nights' watching; and what will not a dash of a pen win, sometimes in the hands of superior persons! Surely the condition must be a degraded one which can do no better for itself than this? And yet, have you ever taken a wise man's real opinion on this matter? You are not fond of hearing opinions of wise men; you like your anonymous penny-a-liners' opinions better. But do you think you could tolerantly receive that of a moderately and popularly wise man--such an one as Charles Dickens, for example? Have you ever considered seriously what his opinion was, about 'Dependants' and 'Menials'? He did not perhaps quite know what it was himself;--it needs wisdom of stronger make than his to be sure of what it does think. He would talk, in his moral passages, about Independence, and Self-dependence, and making one's way in the world, just like any hack of the 'Eatanswill Independent.' But which of the people of his imagination, of his own true children, did he love and honour most? Who are your favourites in his books--as they have been his? Menials, it strikes me, many of them. Sam, Mark, Kit, Peggoty, Mary-my-dear,--even the poor little Marchioness! I don't think Dickens intended you to look upon any of them disrespectfully. Or going one grade higher in his society, Tom Pinch, Newman Noggs, Tim Linkinwater, Oliver Twist--how independent, all of them! Very nearly menial, in soul, if they chance on a good master; none of them brilliant in fortune, nor vigorous in action. Is not the entire testimony of Dickens, traced in its true force, that no position is so good for men and women, none so likely to bring out their best human character, as that of a