There were many ways of “going out” as a governess. The most miserable lot of all was considered--and no doubt was--to be a resident teacher in a girls’ school. In this position there was no society of any kind; there was no chance of meeting young men; there was no pleasure; there was an enforced and unnatural pretence at virtue; there was no hope of change, no hope of happiness, no hope of love; there was not even any chance of making money. One might also become a visiting governess and undertake the children of a house for the day: this gave liberty for the evening. One might become a resident governess in a house: this exposed a girl to the insolence of the servants, the advances of the sons, the caprices or snubs of her employer. Novels of thirty years ago are full of the down-trodden governess. One pities her, because the position, even at the best, must have been beastly--indeed, I remember very well--and the position intolerable for snubs and slights. At the same time, her employer complained that she was meek to exasperation, and resigned to a point which maddened. I have known ladies who were quite carried away: they became speechless in trying to tell of the meekness of a governess. Again, a girl might teach music, if she knew any--a thankless task when the stupidities of the pupils were visited on the teacher. A woman was not allowed to teach dancing: for a most praiseworthy reason, you cannot teach dancing without showing more than the tips of the toes--half the foot perhaps--where, then, is feminine modesty? This accomplishment was therefore taught by a professor, generally a man who had played in his youth some small part in the operatic ballet; he carried a little “kit” or small fiddle, with which he discoursed a scraping, watery kind of music, while his nimble feet showed the way, and his thin legs cut single or double capers which the girls admired, but were not naturally invited to imitate. Nor could a woman teach writing and arithmetic--I cannot possibly explain why. For some unknown reason these useful arts were always taught by men. Yet women could add up; women could write, even in the year 1840. One such teacher of arithmetic and penmanship I knew. He practised entirely in girls’ schools. He was proud of his profession, which he ranked with those of Divinity and Law. He was full of innocuous jokes and, so to speak, non-alcoholic stories. He died about twenty years ago, ruined, he told me, by the introduction of women into the profession. [Illustration: _Painting by Winterhalter_ PRINCE OF WALES, AGE 7]