If, however, it is absolutely impossible for a man to give his daughters anything--in which case they ought most distinctly never to have been born--he is bound to tell them so honestly from their earliest days, and he is equally bound to give them such an education that at any moment they can earn something, either as domestic servants--and, for my part, I would, and far rather, be a parlourmaid than a nursery governess--or as Board school teachers, designers, or as members of such of the home branches of toil as are open to women who cannot aspire to the higher education and the advantages of Girton and similar establishments. Of course the subject of woman’s work is one on which volumes have been written, and volumes might still be compiled from the same source, and I could not naturally go into all the _pros_ and _cons_ of each occupation in this chapter, even if I knew them all, which I do not; but I do strongly beg my readers to dissuade their girls from competing with the men; they only lower prices, and, finally, prevent the men from marrying them by giving themselves one less chance of fulfilling the proper end of their sex--viz. to make a home in the fullest sense of the word. There is plenty for women to do without scratching and fighting with the men. If only they can realise that fact I shall not have written in vain. I have had lately a great deal to do with women who have to earn their own living, and I have never found one who really could and would work at anything that turned up who could not add in an appreciable manner to her income; but I have also found hundreds who would not even try to do what I could offer them, but who preferred to dabble with paint, to embroider hideous cushions no one wants, and which cost pounds to make, to undertaking the ‘smocking,’ the upholstery, and, above all, the dressmaking and cooking with which any sensible woman, who is honest and hard-working, can keep herself and manage to get along comfortably. No; if they can’t get just the work they want, they will not take any; or, if they take it, they grumble; don’t return it at the time they promise; and, finally, are so unbusinesslike that their employers are in despair, and vow that, come what may, they will never employ a so-called lady again. And it is also astonishing to me how the mere fact of being gently born seems to these poor things to excuse all their failings. Rickety screens, impossible pictures, frightful woollies--all must be sold at a higher rate for them than for anyone else, because they are made by ladies. And so it should be if ladies understood that, because they are ladies, they should be more punctual and better workers than the poorer classes, if their ladyhood were a hall-mark instead of a screen for their misdemeanours. But they will not see this, and in consequence they bring discredit on their order, and make the very words ‘Poor lady!’ synonymous with everything that is bad and absolutely unsaleable.