Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/225

Rh of that lovely spot is a school, where poor girls may get an education. Mrs. T. gave a piece of her own garden for it, and teaches there herself, aided by her friends, who serve the poor girls like mothers and sisters, and help to lift them up from the slough of despond in which so many sink. That beats any thing you'll find in Buckingham Palace, sister Mat."

"If they want a drawing teacher 'I'll offer myself, for I think that is regularly splendid," said Matilda warmly, as Livy paused for breath after her harangue.

With these new ideas in her head, Lady Maud enjoyed her party, while the Duchess revelled in radicals to her heart's content; for Aubrey House was their head-quarters, and all were out in full force. It was cheering to our spinster to find that things had moved a good deal since a former visit five or six years before, when Mill had carried into the House of Commons a Woman's Rights petition that filled both arms. People laughed then, and the stout-hearted women laughed also, but said, "Our next petition shall be so big it will have to go in a wheelbarrow." Now the same people