came about 20 shillings a week, i.e. about sixty Rupees the month in Indian money! The trades-people's bill came to about £7 weekly, i.e. over four hundred Rupees the month in Indian money. And the house-rent, exclusive of gas and water rates, came to 3 Guineas weekly or say two hundred Rupees a month in Indian money. The servant's wages including those of a governess came to about one hundred Rupees monthly. Thus there was a fixed expenditure of Rs. 800; and if £3 a week or Rs. 200 a month be added to this for extras, the expenditure comes up to Rs. 1000 a month, for one family of six people! I am afraid to add what travelling and children's dresses &c., cost me during my stay in England!
One more particular, and I have done with the account of our house-keeping. I wished to secure the services of a governess or a lady companion for my wife. Well, there are lady companions! There has been a great deal of correspondence in the London papers this year about the position and prospects of governesses and lady companions. One class of correspondents represent them as well-educated, well-born, hard-working, deserving women,—ladies in the truest sense of the word,—whom poverty alone has compelled to seek a livelihood by serving others, and who are treated with insolence and contumely by those who employ them. Another class of correspondents represent them as dainty things, more given to complain than to work, more given to gadding about and shopping than honestly working at home and minding the children.
