s to earn bread, I,
because I was a girl, was not allowed to carry a gentleman's parcel or
black his boots, or shovel the snow off a shopkeeper's pavement, or put
in coal, or do anything that I could do just as well as they. And so
because I was a girl there seemed to be nothing but starvation or
beggary before me!"

"Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! that such things should be!" cried Old Hurricane.

"That was bad, sir; but there was worse behind! There came a day when my
meal, even the last dust of it, was gone. Then I kept life in me by
drinking water and by sleeping all I could. At first I could not sleep
for the gnawing--gnawing--in my stomach; but afterwards I slept deeply,
from exhaustion, and then I'd dream of feasts and the richest sort of
food, and of eating such quantities; and, really, sir, I seemed to taste
it and enjoy it and get the good of it, almost as much as if it was all
true! One morning after such a dream I was waked up by a great noise
outside. I staggered upon my feet and crept to the window, and there,
sir, were the workmen all outside a-pulling down the house over my
head!"

"Good Heaven!" ejaculated Old Hurricane, who seemed to constitute
himself the chorus of this drama.

"Sir, they didn't know that I or any one was in the empty house! Fright
gave me strength to run down-stairs and run out. Then I stopped. Oh! I
stopped and looked up and down the street. What should I do? The last
shelter was gone away from me--the house where I had lived so many
years, and that seemed like a friend to me, was falling before my eyes!
I thought I'd just go and pitch myself into the river and end it all!"

"That was a very wicked thought," said the Recorder.

"Yes, sir, I know it was, and, besides, I was dreadfully afraid of being
suffocated in the dirty water around the wharf!" said Capitola, with a
sparkle of that irrepressible humor that effervesced even through all
her trouble. "Well, sir, the hand that feeds young ravens kept me from
dying that day. I found a five-cent piece in the street and resolved not
to smother myself in the river mud as long as it lasted. So I bought a
muffin, ate it, and went down to the wharf to look for a job. I looked
all day but found none, and when night came I went into a lumber yard
and hid myself behind a pile of planks that kept the wind off me, and I
went to sleep and dreamed a beautiful dream of living in a handsome
house, with friends all around me and everything good to eat and