24 THE WORLD'S WORKERS. 



Naturally the girl was very proud of this apprecia- 

 tion, but her satisfaction was not permitted to be 

 entirely without alloy. A wealthy connection of the 

 Fairfaxes, named Mrs. Ramsay, one of those amiable 

 individuals who find satisfaction in taking the gilt off 

 another person's gingerbread, came one day to the 

 house to pay a call, and looking round the room, asked 

 who had painted the pictures hung on the wall. It 

 was explained that Mary was the artist. " I am glad," 

 said Mrs. Ramsay, " that Mary Fairfax has any kind 

 of talent that may enable her to win her bread, for 

 every one knows that she will not have a sixpence." 



Until this moment the idea of making money had 

 never entered Mary's mind. In narrating the 

 anecdote afterwards, however, she characteristically 

 remarked, " Had it been my lot to win my bread by 

 painting, I should never have been ashamed of it. I 

 was intensely ambitious to excel in something, for 

 I felt in my own breast that women were capable 

 of taking a higher place in creation than that assigned 

 to them in my early days, which was very low." 



However, Mary Fairfax was not called upon at 

 this period to "win her bread," for when she was 

 about twenty -four years of age she married Mr. 

 Samuel Greig, a distant relation of her mother's family. 



Yet it must not be supposed that she married 

 before she had had a taste of the pleasures of 

 girlhood. For two or three years before she 

 settled down as Mrs. Greig, she went a good deal 



