The more Nora sought for means to earn her own livelihood, the more they seemed to evade her. In her time she had heard a good deal about how difficult it sometimes is to earn one's own living, but she never realized what that meant until she started to earn hers. To begin with, she had only the very vaguest notions of how to set about it. She could not serve in a shop; at least she did not feel as if she could; she was conscious that she was not qualified to be a governess; she had no leaning towards domestic service, though she would have preferred that to serving in a shop; she had no woman's trade at her fingers' ends, so that she was unfit for a workroom. What remained? It seemed to her very little, except some sort of clerkship; she had heard that thousands of women were employed as clerks; or if she could get a post as secretary. That was the objective she had in her mind when she left Cloverlea, a secretaryship; for that she believed herself to have two necessary qualifications--she wrote a very clear hand, and she had some knowledge of typewriting. She had once started a typewriting class in the village; she had taken lessons herself. She had bought a machine and practised on that, until she gave it away to one of the pupils, who wished to take advantage of the information she had acquired to earn something for herself. That was nearly a year ago; she had not practised since; but she did not doubt that if she came within reach of a machine it would all come back to her; and she had attained to a state of considerable proficiency.  
So she bought the daily papers and answered all the advertisements for secretaryships which they contained. There were not as many as she would have wished; some days there were none; and the only answers she received were from agents, who offered to place her name upon their books, in consideration of a fee, which she did not see her way to give them. The way those eight pounds were slipping through her fingers was marvellous; when three weeks had gone she had scarcely thirty shillings left, between her and destitution. Of course, she had been extravagant--monstrously extravagant, as Miss Gibb occasionally told her; but when you have been accustomed all your life to an establishment kept up at the rate of some twelve thousand pounds a year, to say nothing of having five hundred a year for pocket money, it is not easy, all at once, to learn the secret of how to make a shilling do the work of eighteenpence; that is a secret which takes a great deal of learning; by many temperaments it can never be learnt at all.
 
She had been a month in Swan Street; had paid three weeks' bills; the fourth lay in front of her. It was such a modest bill--Miss Gibb's bills were curiosities; yet when it was paid she would not have six shillings left in the world. It frightened her to think of it; the effort to think seemed to set her head in a whirl; her heart was thumping against her ribs; it made her dizzy. What was she to do? where was she to go? She could not stay in Swan Street; she had not enough to pay next week's rent, to say nothing of food. Yet, what was the alternative? With less than six shillings in the world what could she do?
 
In a sense, since her coming to Newington Butts she had kept herself to herself. She had this much in common with her father, she could not wear her heart upon her sleeve. She had kept her own counsel; told no one of the straits she was in, of the efforts she was making to find a way to earn her daily bread. But it was plain even to her, as she regarded her few shillings, that the time had come when she must take counsel of some one. If she had to go out into the highways and byways, with her scanty capital, she must learn of some one what highways and byways there were for her to go out into; of herself she knew nothing. As she cast about in her mind for some way out of her trouble, it seemed to her that the only person to whom she could unbosom herself was Miss Gibb.
 
She rang the bell, paid her bill, and as she watched Angelina, with her tongue out and her head on one side, making magnificent efforts to affix her signature to the receipt, she prepared herself for the ordeal. When the receipt was signed, and Angelina was about to go, Nora stopped her.
 
"If you have nothing particular to do just now, and you don't mind, there is something which I should like to say to you."
 
"I don't know that there's anything you might call particular that I've got to do, but there's always something."
 
Which was true enough; from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night, Miss Gibb was always doing something; and sometimes also, Nora suspected, in the silent watches of the night. Nora hesitated; she found the subject a difficult one to broach.
 
"I'm in rather an uncomfortable position; I--I'm afraid I shall have to leave you."
 
"Why? Aren't we giving satisfaction?"
 
"If I give you as much satisfaction as you give me there'd be no trouble on that score."
 
"Oh, you give us satisfaction all right enough; although, of course, any one can see you're several cuts above our place."
 
"You are likely to be several cuts above me; I am having to leave you because I have not money enough left to pay you next week's rent."
 
"Not enough money left? How much have you?"
 
"Five and eightpence halfpenny, to be precise." Miss Gibb changed countenance. "Five and eightpence halfpenny! That's not much."
 
"No one can appreciate the fact better than I do."
 
"But however come you to have so little?"
 
"I hadn't much when I came, and I suppose I've been extravagant."
 
"You have been that."
 
"You see,"--despite herself Nora sighed--"I haven't been used to economy."
 
"Any one could see that with half-an-eye; I shouldn't be surprised to learn that you're one of those who've been used to spend as much as five pounds a week."
 
"I'm afraid I am.
 
"Then of course there's excuses. We can't get out of ways like that with a hop, skip and a jump; it's not to be expected. But haven't you got any friends who'd help you?"
 
"I haven't a friend to whom I can apply for help."
 
"I should have thought you were the kind who'd have had lots of friends. Have you fell out with them?"
 
"I thought my father was a rich man; but when he died--it was only a very little while ago--it appeared that he wasn't; so I have to make my own way in the world, and that is how I came to Swan Street."
 
"I know them fathers; I had one of my own, and he wasn't of any account; though I will say this, I always liked him."
 
"I have been trying to find something by means of which I could earn enough money to keep me. I hoped to have found it before now, but I haven't, and that's the trouble."
 
"What sort of work have you been looking for?"
 
"I've been endeavouring to get a post as secretary, among other things, and I've answered no end of advertisements, but nothing has come of one of them."
 
"Secretary? what's that? The notices that the water'll be cut off if it's not paid for, they're signed by a secretary; I always took him to be some kind of a bailiff."
 
Nora endeavoured to explain, but her explanation was not very lucid, and Miss Gibb was not extremely impressed.
 
"Is that the only kind of work you want?" she asked; "a secretary?"
 
"Indeed it isn't; I should be glad to do anything."
 
"Some people, when they say they'd be glad to do anything, mean nothing, which is about all they're good for; I know. How would you like to go out charing?"
 
"Charing? Well, I may be glad to have an opportunity of doing that."
 
"Yes, no doubt; I fancy I see you at it! you charing! My word! Strikes me you're the kind who'll find it difficult to get work of any sort."
 
"You're not very reassuring."
 
"Facts is facts."
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