But my little daughter was there, and her sweet face and dancing feet
broke the solitude, while her imperious claims for love and tendance
forced me into attention to the daily needs of life. And life was hard
in those days of spring and summer, resources small, and work
difficult to find. In truth, the two months after my mother's death
were the dreariest my life has known, and they were months of
tolerably hard struggle. The little house in Colby Road taxed my
slender resources heavily, and the search for work was not yet
successful. I do not know how I should have managed but for the help
ever at hand, of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Scott. During this time I wrote
for Mr. Scott pamphlets on Inspiration, Atonement, Mediation and
Salvation, Eternal Torture, Religious Education of Children, Natural
_v_. Revealed Religion, and the few guineas thus earned were very
valuable. Their house, too, was always open to me, and this was no
small help, for often in those days the little money I had was enough
to buy food for two but not enough to buy it for three, and I would go
out and study all day at the British Museum, so as to "have my dinner
in town," the said dinner being conspicuous by its absence. If I was
away for two evenings running from the hospitable house in the
terrace, Mrs. Scott would come down to see what had happened, and many
a time the supper there was of real physical value to me. Well might I
write, in 1879, when Thomas Scott lay dead: "It was Thomas Scott whose
house was open to me when my need was sorest, and he never knew, this
generous, noble heart, how sometimes, when I went in, weary and
overdone, from a long day's study in the British Museum, with scarce
food to struggle through the day--he never knew how his genial, 'Well,
little lady,' in welcoming tone, cheered the then utter loneliness of
my life. To no living man--save one--do I owe the debt of gratitude
that I owe to Thomas Scott."