second son apprenticed to the firm could do his father's work for nothing, had lost the situation held for twenty years. The old man, who felt his life-work slipping from his hands, bitterly upbraided poor Charlie for "taking the bread out of his sisters' mouths" and "cutting his own father out." What could the youth do but weep when sore pressed? Was he not "bound" for years to come yet? Had he not to do what he was bid? The eldest son was a saddler just "out of his time," but gentlefolk were "putting down" their horses, and after five years' application there was no demand for the saddles William had studied to make.
"If I'd only learnt to plough with the horses, instead of to harness them," the young man complained, "I could go on the land to-morrow—that's always there—and make something grow, if it was only 'Turks' heads' for mother's window."
Their straitened circumstances and Gwyneth's account of the new system that was establishing itself beside the lake, set the four girls thinking and talking. Why should they not transfer the scene of their labours to such a favoured locality? Might not a party of homeless girls win a living there, and spend spare hours in writing, sewing, and painting, with other delights, as their tastes and acquirements suggested?
"One fact alone is significant," remarked Gwyneth. "Here it costs us one pound a week to live, or starve, whichever you care to call it; there, a number of us could exist, in comparative affluence, for two shillings a week each. Though far from town, we ought to be able to earn with our hands and our brains as much as that, and a great deal more."
The girls revelled in the idea. At the Work Association, Academy, and Salon, they canvassed and expanded it.
