kept
by the widowed sister of one of our servants. Here I obtained shelter
for the night. The next day he discovered me. He made his vile
proposals; he offered me the whole of his fortune; he declared his
resolution, say what I might, to return the next day. That night, by
help of the good woman who had taken care of me--under cover of the
darkness, as if _I_ had been to blame!--I was secretly removed to the
East End of London, and placed under the charge of a trustworthy person
who lived, in a very humble way, by letting lodgings.

"Here, in a little back garret at the top of the house, I was thrown
again on the world--an age when it was doubly perilous for me to be left
to my own resources to earn the bread I ate and the roof that covered
me.

"I claim no credit to myself--young as I was, placed as I was between
the easy life of Vice and the hard life of Virtue--for acting as I did.
The man simply horrified me: my natural impulse was to escape from him.
But let it be remembered, before I approach the saddest part of my
sad story, that I was an innocent girl, and that I was at least not to
blame.

"Forgive me for dwelling as I have done on my early years. I shrink from
speaking of the events that are still to come.

"In losing the esteem of my first benefactress, I had, in my friendless
position, lost all hold on an honest life--except the one frail hold
of needle-work. The only reference of which I could now dispose was the
recommendation of me by my landlady to a place of business which largely
employed expert needle-women. It is needless for me to tell you how
miserably work of that sort is remunerated: you have read about it in
the newspapers. As long as my health lasted I contrived to live and to
keep out of debt. Few girls could have resisted as long as I did
the slowly-poisoning influences of crowded work-room, insufficient
nourishment, and almost total privation of exercise. My life as a
child had been a life in the open air: it had helped to strengthen
a constitution naturally hardy, naturally free from all taint of
hereditary disease. But my time came at last. Under the cruel stress
laid on it my health gave way. I was struck down by low fever, and
sentence was pronounced on me by my fellow-lodgers: 'Ah, poor thing,
_her_ troubles will soon be at an end!'

"The prediction might have proved true--I might never have committed the
errors and endured the sufferings of after years--if I had fallen ill in
an