No one answered; so I continued, “I will tell you about a servant I once knew very well. Her name was not Jane, but I will call her by that name now. From fourteen to sixteen, she was employed, under an upper-nurse, in taking care of some little children; but, as she wished to be a cook, her mother found a place for her as kitchen-maid, where she was under a servant celebrated for her good cooking and bad temper. The only time Jane had for going out was Sunday afternoon, when she always went home to see her mother. For the first four weeks she brought home nothing but complaints of her place: it was so hard; the tyrannical cook was intolerable to live with; the kitchen was so hot, &c. With many tears and lamentations she besought her mother to take her away from the place. The mother, after making careful inquiry, found that the cook was really a difficult and trying woman to live with; but that she was a good teacher; and that the toil of which Jane complained would, in the end, be the means of her getting a more thorough insight into her work. She ascertained, too, that though Jane was fully occupied all day, she was never kept up at night; therefore, she was not likely to suffer in health: and as to the hot kitchen, that was the more trying to Jane, from her having previously been accustomed to be out of doors half the day with the children; but as cooking is usually accomplished in a hot kitchen, the sooner she learned to bear that the better. “The Sunday after all these inquiries had been made, Jane came home, and, as usual, began her complaints; the mother stopped her, by saying— “‘I have been inquiring this week all about your place, and I find there are in it some things very uncomfortable and trying; but it is just the place where you can learn to be a good cook, and, whatever you may think of it, Jane, I mean you to stop there two years.’ “‘O mother!’ said Jane, ‘how can you be so cruel!’ and she burst into tears. “‘Jane,’ said her mother, ‘when the boys went out to work, you know how Jim used to complain about how he was teased in the carpenter’s shop, and how bad Harry’s hands used to get with the bricks; they used to come home awful tired in the evening; but I said to them, as you know, “Well, boys, it is no good to give in; we can’t have nothing in this world without trying for it. All this suffering and hard work will make men of you, and make you worth something. I don’t want my boys to be gingerbread people, that can’t do nothing, and can’t bear nothing; you must just face about, and meet your troubles, and it’ll be the making of ye by and by.” And so, Jane, now I say the very same to you. I had to pay something for the boys’ learning their trades, and to keep ’em, too; but you are both paid and kept while you are learning yours; and so you must make up your mind to leave off grumbling, put your own shoulder to the wheel, and I say to you, as I did to them, it will be the making of ye by and by.’