"The change in me began when father came back to us, and I began to
feel my freedom. Then I wanted to get away, and to live by myself. I
thought of London--I've told you how much I always thought of
London--but I hadn't the courage to go there. In Birmingham I
began to change my old habits; but more in what I thought than what
I did. I wished to enjoy myself like other girls, but I couldn't.
For one thing, I thought it wicked; and then I was so afraid of
spending a penny--I had so often known what it was to be in want
of a copper to buy food. So I lived quite alone; sat in my room
every evening and read books. You could hardly believe what a number
of books I read in that year. Sometimes I didn't go to bed till two
or three o'clock."

"What sort of books?"

"I got them from the Free Library--books of all kinds; not only
novels. I've never been particularly fond of novels; they always
made me feel my own lot all the harder. I never could understand
what people mean when they say that reading novels takes them 'out
of themselves.' It was never so with me. I liked travels and lives
of people, and books about the stars. Why do you laugh?"

"You escaped from yourself _there_, at all events."

"At last I saw an advertisement in a newspaper--a London paper in
the reading-room--which I was tempted to answer; and I got an
engagement in London. When the time came for starting I was so
afraid and low-spirited that I all but gave it up. I should have
done, if I could have known what was before me. The first year in