I knew nothing of her character then, and the idea I had might have come to nothing through her turning out untrustworthy.

But I thought to myself: Suppose she grows up to be a good woman--suppose I can teach her to look at things in the same way as I do myself, train her to feel that no happiness could be greater than the power to put an end to ever so little of the want and wretchedness about her--suppose when I die I could have the certainty that all this money was going to be used for the good of the poor by a woman who herself belonged to the poor?
You understand me?
It would have been easy enough to leave it among charities in the ordinary way; but my idea went beyond that.

I might have had Jane schooled and fashioned into a lady, and still have hoped that she would use the money well; but my idea went beyond _that_.
There's plenty of ladies nowadays taking an interest in the miserable, and spending their means unselfishly.

What I hoped was to raise up for the poor and the untaught a friend out of their own midst, some one who had gone through all that they _suffer_, who was accustomed to earn her own living by the work of her hands as _they_ do, who had never thought herself their better, who saw the world as they see it and knew all their wants.

A lady may do good, we know that; but she can't be the friend of the poor as I understand it; there's too great a distance between her world and theirs.