pamphlet, _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_, was her first
attempt. For this she received ten guineas, with which she was able to
help her friends the Bloods.

She shortly afterwards accepted a situation as governess in Lord
Kingsborough's family, where she was much loved by her pupils; but
their mother, who did little to gain their affection herself, becoming
jealous of the ascendency of Mary over them, found some pretext for
dismissing her. Mary's contact, while in this house, with people of
fashion inspired her only with contempt for their small pleasures and
utterly unintellectual discourse. These surroundings, although she was
treated much on a footing of equality by the family, were a severe
privation for Mary, who was anxious to develop her mind, and to whom
spiritual needs were ever above physical.

On leaving the Kingsboroughs, Mary found work of a kind more congenial
to her disposition, as Mr. Johnson, the bookseller in St. Paul's
Churchyard who had taken her pamphlet, now gave her regular work as
his "reader," and also in translating. Now began the happiest part of
Mary's life. In the midst of books she soon formed a circle of
admiring friends. She lived in the simplest way, in a room almost bare
of furniture, in Blackfriars. Here she was able to see after her
sisters and to have with her her young brother, who had been much
neglected; and in the intervals of her necessary work she began
writing on the subjects which lay nearest to her heart; for here,
among other work, she commenced her celebrated _Vindication of the
Rights of Woman_, a work for which women ought always to be
grateful to her, for with this began in England the movement which,
progressing amidst much obloquy and denunciation, has led to so many
of the reforms in social life which have come, and may be expected to