"Well, for several reasons," replied Mary.  "I am not like you, Florence, and I am not like you, Kitty.  I have got both a father and mother.  My father is a clergyman; there are nine other children besides me--I am the third.  It was extremely difficult for father to send me to this expensive school, but he felt that education was the one thing necessary for me.  Father is a very advanced, liberal-minded man; he is before his time, so everyone says; but mother does not think it necessary that girls should know too much.  Mother thinks that a girl ought to be purely domestic; she is very particular about needlework, and she would like every girl to be able to make a shirt well, and to be able to cook and preserve, and know a little about gardening, and know a great deal about keeping a house in perfect order.  But father says, and very rightly, that every girl cannot marry, and that the girls who do not marry cannot want to know a great deal about keeping a house in order, and that such girls, unless they have fortunes left to them, will have to earn their own living.  Of course, there are very few openings for women, and most women have to teach, so it is decided that I shall teach by and by.  If marriage comes, all right, but if it does not come I shall earn my living as a governess.