22 Caroline Lucrctia Herschel. [i768~ 



account of this episode shows how customary such 

 apprenticeship was among young ladies of good 

 family, as a part of their education : 



"My mother found some difficulty in persuading the 

 lady to whom I wished to go, to receive me without paying 

 the usual premium, but at last she gave me leave to come on. 

 paying one thaler per month. I felt myself rather humbled 

 on going the first time among twenty-one young people with 

 an elegant woman, Madame Kiister, at their head, directing 

 them in various works of finery. Among the group were 

 several young ladies of genteel families, and as I came there 

 on rather reduced terms, I expected that I should be 

 kept in the back ground, doing nothing but the plain 

 work of the business ; but contrary to my fears, I gained 

 in the school-mistress a valuable friend . . . Here 

 I found myself daily happy for a few hours, and one of 

 the young women,* after a lapse of thirty-five years, when 

 I was introduced to her at the Queen's Lodge, received 

 me as an old acquaintance, though I could but just remember 

 having sometimes exchanged a nod and smile with a sweet 

 little girl about ten or eleven years old. But I soon was 

 sensible of having found what hitherto I had looked for in 

 viiin a sincere and disinterested friend to whom I might have 

 applied for counsel and comfort in my deserted situation." 



A proposal from Jacob that Dietrich, whom the 

 father on his deathbed had specially commended to his 

 care, should be sent to England, caused his mother the 

 utmost distress, on account of his being still too young 

 to be confirmed ; but her scruples were overcome and, 



* Afterwards Madame Bcckedorff, Miss Herschel's most valued friend in, 

 after years. 



