Thus, you see.

I and my young people make a fair bargain on both sides; it's no charity.

I don't believe in charity." "No," said Hilary, feeling her spirit rise.

She was yet young enough, yet enough unworn by the fight to feel the deliciousness of work--honest work for honest pay.

"I think I could do it," she added.
"I think, with a little practice, I really could keep a shop." "At all events, perhaps you could do what I find more difficult to get done, and well done, for it requires a far higher class of women than generally apply: you could keep the accounts of a shop; you should be the head, and it would be easy to find the hands, Let me see; there is a young lady, she has managed my stationer's business at Kensington these two years, and now she is going to be married.
Are you good at figures; do you understand book-keeping ?" And suddenly changing into the woman of business, and one who was evidently quite accustomed both to arrange and command, Miss Balquidder put Hilary through a sort of extempore arithmetical catechism, from which she came off with flying colors.
"I only wish there were more like you.