Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/77

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Quiet Walks for Girls
65

to. Why don't you drop elocution and start in as a reader to one of these women? You can charge from fifty cents to a dollar an hour, and your work will consist of picking out from the morning paper what will be interesting to your employer. Then you can answer her notes. This is neither hard nor unpleasant work. To be able to take the mail, select from it the letters that are purely personal, or which are from members of the family, and those that are social or business notes, to open and read the latter, and answer them in accordance with the wishes expressed, answer them in proper language and in a good, clear hand, will add to your value as a reader. And if the lady for whom you are working should be of sufficient importance socially to require an elaborate visiting book, and you can learn how to keep that in order, you will add just that much more to your value.

BY WORK OF THE NEEDLE

Some time ago I wrote of the money that might be made by a young woman who was a good mender; since then there have been a number of menders who advertised and readily found work. But they made a great mistake; they overcharged. Asking one dollar an hour for their work, and in that hour mending one pair of stockings, was an evidence of very bad business tact. If the stock-