divide their young lives wholly between the
toil of the work-room and the cheerfulness of
the narrow, lonely lodging. They come
together to obtain, by their united efforts, the
full blessing of light and air, of warm and
spacious rooms, of company, and of something
like family life. They help each other to
attain to better things than they can compass
singly, many of them having felt how

—hard it is to wear their bloom
In unremitting sighs away;
To mourn the night's oppressive gloom,
And faintly bless the rising day.

All honour—and all help, too—to their
effort! Their own effort it is, and must be.
Help of ours can consist only in making it
known, as far as these pages can, to others
of their class, and in recommending them
to give their hearty support to the
undertaking.

We have spoken of this little community
before.* It is the same that was established
first at a house in Manchester Street,
Manchester Square. The house in Manchester
Street was filled; and, to make the experiment
perfectly successful, it was found that a
good deal more space was wanted, but with
only a slight increase of rent.
* See volume Thirteen, page seventy-seven.

Queen Square and Great Ormond Street
exist as of old, except that the noble
gentlemen in wigs, and their noble ladies
in sedan chairs and in coaches, no longer
throng the roadway. There is no flaring of
links at night, because my lady the Duchess
is holding an assembly. The old bustle has
ceased, and silence follows it. Thus it
happens that for a few pounds a-year more than
they paid in a more western quarter of the
town, the milliner's girls are established in a
house where there is room for threescore,
instead of thirty. Here they can gossip
together after work is over, in a pillared
saloon, wherein ministers of state have
received company. Its rich furniture is gone;
but, well lighted with gas, and warmed in
wintertime with a bright fire, the present
occupant may be as much at home in it as
ever my Lord Thurlow was. It is a room
that will be as delightful in the summer as
it is snug in the winter; for its windows
open on a broad terrace, from which the rural
landscape used to be enjoyed, and which is still
a pleasant promenade. From the terrace one
descends by steps into a garden larger than
is usually to be found in London. The
bedrooms are numerous, large, airy, and well
lighted. There are kitchens, pantries and
store-rooms, with the cooking accommodation
that was used by the departed club.

The invitation to help is addressed, by the
milliner's day-workers within the home, to
their companions without it. Its maintenance
depends on them; although it would not
have existed, but for Lady Hobart and the
Viscountess Goderich; and that, in its first
days, it is kept from falling by their generous
assistance. But it is to be remembered that
there is no man or woman in any station
who has not to receive very often in this
world—thank Heaven, that it is so—the
kind offices of others. It is obvious that the
most industrious needlewoman in the
establishment of Madame Crinoline could not
persuade any landlord to grant her a lease of
a house at a hundred a year rental. Such a
home as that of which we speak can only be
established when there are persons known to
possess worldly means ready to become surety
on its behalf. That is the position in which
the two ladies whom we have named stand
with regard to the community of day-workers
at number forty-four, Great Ormond Street.
They knew that the usual price of a week's
industry with the needle would not provide
one girl with a home as good as she could
wish to have, and with the comforts that she
ought to have; they knew also, that if a
sufficient number of girls contributed out of
their littles, they could make a mickle that
would give them power to overcome a host
of difficulties, and make them richer by the
saving of much waste expense. Clearly,
however, they could not themselves have either
time or power, without help at the beginning,
to set such an experiment fairly in action.
Lady Hobart and Lady Goderich undertook
then, that on this account the experiment
should not miss being tried. They became
answerable for the rent of the former house,
furnished it as a home for a community
of day-workers, and fixed a scale of
payment for those who should take lodgings
in it, which would suffice, they believed, to
make the establishment support itself. For
a single bed, with use of kitchen fire, and of
the common sitting-room and library, with
fires, and light, and books (and also medical
attendance, when required), half-a-crown a
week. This establishment became so full
during the season, that there was not room for
all who wished to join it; at the same time it
was found that, to make the home one that
could be supported wholly by the girls
themselves, more house-room must be obtained in
proportion to the money paid for rental. So
the house was taken in Great Ormond Street.

There is nothing whatever in the constitution
of the household thus established, which,
in the least degree, interferes with the just
independence of its members. They pay for
accommodation of a certain kind the price
asked for it, and it is theirs. The kind
of accommodation they pay for is one that
gives them many of the comforts of family
life, and it is an essential part of every family
that there should be somebody who occupies
the central place; to whom, especially, the
servants are responsible, and who takes thought
for the maintenance of that good order which
is necessary to the health and peace of every
household. This place is occupied at Great