ght's sake, near the second window as you
come from Bedford Street; and we were so brisk at it that the people
used to stop and look in. Sometimes there would be quite a little crowd
there. I saw my father coming in at the door one day when we were very
busy, and I wondered how he could bear it.

"Now, I generally had my dinner in the warehouse. Sometimes I brought it
from home, so I was better off. I see myself coming across Russell
Square from Somers-town, one morning, with some cold hotch-potch in a
small basin tied up in a handkerchief. I had the same wanderings about
the streets as I used to have, and was just as solitary and
self-dependent as before; but I had not the same difficulty in merely
living. I never, however, heard a word of being taken away, or of being
otherwise than quite provided for.

"At last, one day, my father, and the relative so often mentioned,
quarreled; quarreled by letter, for I took the letter from my father to
him which caused the explosion, but quarreled very fiercely. It was
about me. It may have had some backward reference, in part, for anything
I know, to my employment at the window. All I am certain of is, that,
soon after I had given him the letter, my cousin (he was a sort of
cousin, by marriage) told me he was very much insulted about me, and
that it was impossible to keep me after that. I cried very much, partly
because it was so sudden, and partly because in his anger he was violent
about my father, though gentle to me. Thomas, the old soldier, comforted
me, and said he was sure it was for the best. With a relief so strange
that it was like oppression, I went home.

"My mother set herself to accommodate the quarrel, and did so next day.
She brought home a request for me to return next morning, and a high
character of me, which I am very sure I deserved. My father said I
should go back no more, and should go to school. I do not write
resentfully or angrily; for I know how all these things have worked
together to make me what I am; but I never afterwards forgot, I never
shall forget, I never can forget, that my mother was warm for my being
sent back.

"From that hour until this at which I write, no word of that part of my
childhood which I have now gladly brought to a close has passed my lips
to any human being. I have no idea how long it lasted; whether for a
year, or much more, or less. From that hour until this my father and my
mother have been stricken dumb upon it. I have