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After Dark by Wilkie Collins
page 7 of 506 (01%)
only have between three and four pounds left in the cash-box,
after we have got out of debt. Then there was the sad necessity
of writing letters in my husband's name to the rich people who
were ready to employ him, telling them of the affliction that had
overtaken him, and of the impossibility of his executing their
orders for portraits for the next six months to come. And,
lastly, there was the heart-breaking business for me to go
through of giving our landlord warning, just as we had got
comfortably settled in our new abode. If William could only have
gone on with his work, we might have stopped in this town, and in
these clean, comfortable lodgings for at least three or four
months. We have never had the use of a nice empty garret before,
for the children to play in; and I never met with any landlady so
pleasant to deal with in the kitchen as the landlady here. And
now we must leave all this comfort and happiness, and go--I
hardly know where. William, in his bitterness, says to the
workhouse; but that shall never be, if I have to go out to
service to prevent it. The darkness is coming on, and we must
save in candles, or I could write much more. Ah, me! what a day
this has been. I have had but one pleasant moment since it began;
and that was in the morning, when I set my little Emily to work
on a bead purse for the kind doctor's daughter. My child, young
as she is, is wonderfully neat-handed at stringing beads; and
even a poor little empty purse as a token of our gratitude, is
better than nothing at all.

19th.--A visit from our best friend--our only friend here--the
doctor. After he had examined William's eyes, and had reported
that they were getting on as well as can be hoped at present, he
asked where we thought of going to live? I said in the cheapest
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