Common arithmetic soon proved that this £50 a year could not maintain them; in fact they must soon draw on the little sum—already dipped into to-day, for Ascott—which had been produced by the sale of the Stowbury furniture. That sale, they now found had been a mistake; and they half feared whether the whole change from Stowbury to London had not been a mistake—one of those sad errors in judgment which we all commit sometimes, and have to abide by, and make the best of, and learn from if we can. Happy those who "Dinna greet ower spilt milk"—a proverb wise as cheerful, which Hilary, knowing well who it came from, repeated to Johanna to comfort her—teaches a second brave lesson, how to avoid spilling the milk a second time. And then they consulted anxiously about what was to be done to earn money.
Teaching presented itself as the only resource. In those days women's work and women's rights had not been discussed so freely as at present. There was a strong feeling that the principal thing required was our duties—owed to ourselves, our home, our family and friends. There was a deep conviction—now, alas! slowly disappearing—that a woman, single or married, should never throw herself out of the safe circle of domestic life till the last extremity of necessity; that it is wiser to keep or help to keep a home, by learning how to expend its income, cook its dinners, make and mend its clothes, and, by the law that "prevention is better than cure," studying all those preservative means of holding a family together—as women, and women alone, can—than to dash into men's sphere of trades and professions, thereby, in most instances, fighting an unequal battle, and coming out of it maimed, broken, unsexed; turned into beings that are neither men nor women, with the faults and corresponding sufferings of both, and the compensations of neither.
"I don't see," said poor Hilary, "what I can do but teach. And oh, if I could only get daily pupils, so that I might come home or nights, and creep into the fireside; and have time to mend the stockings and look after Ascott's linen, that he need not be so awfully extravagant."
CHAPTER XI.
Aunt Hilary fixed her honest eyes on the lad's face—the lad, so little younger than herself, and yet who at tunes, when he let out sayings such as this, seemed so awfully, so pitifully old; and she felt thankful that, at all risks and costs, they had come to London to be beside him, to help him, to save him, if he needed saving, as women only can. For, after all, he was but a boy. And though as he walked by her side, stalwart and manly, the thought smote her painfully that many a young fellow of his age was the stay and bread winner of some widowed mother or sister, nay even of wife and child, still she repeated cheerfully. "What can one expect from him? He is only a boy."
God help the women who, for those belonging to them—husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, sons—have ever so tenderly to apologize.
When they came in sight of St. Pancras's Church, Ascott said, suddenly, "I think you'll knew your way now, Aunt Hilary."
"Certainly. Why?"
"Because—you wouldn't be vexed if I left you? I have an engagement; some fellows that I dine with, out at Hampstead, or Richmond, or Blackwell, every Sunday. Nothing wicked, I assure you. And you know it's capital for one's health to get a Sunday in fresh air."
"Yes; but Aunt Johanna will be sorry to miss you."