"It is no easy matter to work up a girl until you know thoroughly whether you can tell her all with safety, or must put her aside at once as useless. It requires a lot of tact--have those two sisters got that tact? I am not sure. Think of the danger of telling all to a girl too soon. "Why, nine out of ten of the second circle, who profess so much and mean it too, would look rather strange if you were to say, 'Now you are to go and practice what you have been so long preaching.' The scheme looks perfect as long as it's only a question of talking, but when it comes to doing, what a lot of ugly holes one can pick in it at once. I know them, I tell you." "It will be a question of time," said Catherine, thoughtfully. "I think you are right, Eliza; but it _must_ succeed: there must be thousands brave enough to act up to their convictions; and how much could be done with only one hundred!" "Now, that girl living with me," continued the boarding-house keeper, "is a good scholar. I have been educating her and watching her for three years, ever since I persuaded you to admit her into the second circle. I think she is safe. With your leave I will now tell her the secret of the aim--she is ready for it." "My leave! of course," replied Mrs. King. "Who knows better than you when a girl's mind is ripe? The sooner we begin the better, now that the machinery is complete. Look in how many quarters we have interest! Why, nothing will be easier than to scatter the girls through the associations of nurses--to have them trained in the hospitals." "Yes," said Eliza, "I was looking through my little book to-day We have enough correspondents and fools whom we have taken in, to get us as many characters for our nurses as we want. I can guarantee now to obtain places for our girls in the biggest houses in England, through my innocent agents. You should look into my book of introductions, and my collections of genuine characters. I think I deserve credit for them." "You have worked that department of yours very cleverly, sister Eliza," broke in another voice: that of the woman who was young, and had been a mother, a voice not unpleasant in tone, but very much so in its suggestion, for it had a hard ring in it, of suppressed spite and jubilant malice. It was as the voice of a female Mephistopheles, an enemy of mankind generally; but she could hide this expression when she liked, and speak like an angel of love and pity. "Sisters," continued the strange woman, "I have formed a purpose. Though I am one of the six inner, and so properly should confine myself to training girls, yet, first because I wish it, secondly, because I am the only one of you six young and prepossessing enough to do so, I intend to be an actor myself in this drama. I am now applying to enter an association of nurses. I shall want some assistance from you in the way of introductions and references, oh, ingenious Eliza! and then I'll start the game myself."