The season lasted about three weeks, during all which time our pastor was a frequent visitor at our garden. As both he and Mr. Logan had been made acquainted with my general object and plans, so from generals they were at last taken into confidence as to particulars. I showed them Fred's tally, and it appeared to me they entered into the study of it with almost as much interest as we did ourselves. Though in many respects a very small affair, yet it involved great results for me, and our visitors both thought it might be turned to the advantage of others also. "I am astonished," said Mr. Seeley, one day, after examining Fred's tally, and expressing himself in terms of admiration at the success of our enterprise,--"I am astonished at the wasteful lives which so many of our women are living. They seem utterly destitute of purpose. They make no effort to give them shape or plan, or to set up a goal in the distance, to be reached by some kind of industrious application. They drift along listlessly and mechanically, in the old well-worn tracks, trusting to accident to give them a new direction. It is a sad thing, this waste of human existence!" "But consider, Sir," I replied, "how limited are our opportunities, how circumscribed the circle in which we are compelled to move, and with how much jealousy the world stands guard upon its boundaries, as if it were determined we should not overstep them. When women succeed, is it not solely by accident, or, if there be such a thing, by luck?" "Accident, Miss," replied Mr. Logan, "undoubtedly has something to do with it. But observation, energy, and tact are much more important elements of success. More than sixty years ago a young New-England girl fell desperately in love with an imported straw bonnet which she accidentally met with in a shop. The price was too large for her slender purse, so she determined to make one for herself. With no guide but recollection of the charming novelty she had seen, no other pattern to work by, no opportunity of unbraiding it to see how it was made, no instruction whatever, she persevered until she had produced a bonnet that filled the hearts of her female friends with envy, as well as with ambition to copy it. This was the origin of the once famous Dunstable bonnet. From this accidental beginning there sprung up a manufacture which now employs ten thousand persons, most of whom are women, and the product of which, in Massachusetts alone, amounts to six millions of hats and bonnets annually. This girl thus became a public benefactor. She opened a new and profitable employment to women, and at the same time enriched herself." "Yes," added Mr. Seeley, "and there are many other employments for female skill and labor that may yet be opened up. This that you are toiling in, Lizzie, may turn out something useful. I presume that even bonnets cannot be more popular than strawberries."