Amelia thinks, and thinks, and racks her brain, to find some means of increasing the small pittance upon which the household is starving. Can she give lessons in anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that women are working hard, and better than she can, for twopence a day. She buys a couple of begilt Bristol boards at the Fancy Stationer's and paints her very best upon them--a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and a pink face smiling in the midst of a pencil landscape--a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge, with a little dog, nicely shaded. The man of the Fancy Repository and Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts (of whom she bought the screens, vainly hoping that he would repurchase them when ornamented by her hand) can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these feeble works of art. He looks askance at the lady who waits in the shop, and ties up the cards again in their envelope of whitey-brown paper, and hands them to the poor widow and Miss Clapp, who had never seen such beautiful things in her life, and had been quite confident that the man must give at least two guineas for the screens. They try at other shops in the interior of London, with faint sickening hopes. "Don't want 'em," says one. 
Amelia racks her brain to find some means of increasing the small pittance upon which the household is starving. Can she give lessons in anything? paint card-racks? do fine work? She finds that women are working hard, and better than she can, for twopence a day.
She buys a couple of Bristol boards and paints her very best upon them - a shepherd with a red waistcoat on one, and a shepherdess on the other, crossing a little bridge with a dog, nicely shaded. The man at the Brompton Emporium of Fine Arts can hardly hide the sneer with which he examines these feeble works of art. He looks askance at the lady, wraps up the screens again in their paper, and hands them back to the poor widow and Miss Clapp, who has never seen such beautiful things in her life, and was quite confident that he must give at least two guineas for them.
They try at other shops. "Don't want 'em," says one. 