I take it, not because it is uncommon, but because it is typical.
At one of my mass meetings of working women in the North I was told at its close that a woman wished to speak with me in private.

As soon as I could disengage myself from the crowd of mothers who were always eager to shake hands with me, and to bless me with tears in their eyes for taking up their cause, I went down the room, and there, in a dimly-lighted corner of the great hall, I found a respectable-looking woman waiting for me.

I sat down by her side, and she poured out the pent-up sorrow of her heart before telling me the one great favor she craved at my hands.

She had an only daughter, who at the age of sixteen she had placed out in service, at a carefully-chosen situation.

We all know what a difficult age in a girl's life is sixteen; but our girls we can keep under our own watchful care, and their little wilfulnesses and naughtinesses are got over within the four walls of a loving home, and are only the thorns that precede the perfect rose of womanhood.