wonderful and impossible things. I had to turn old rags into smart
new costumes, to trim worn-out hats into all manner of gaudy shapes,
even to patch up boots in a way you couldn't imagine. And they used
to send me with money to buy things they were ashamed to go and buy
themselves; then, if I hadn't laid out their few pence with
marvellous result, they all but accused me of having used some of
the money for myself. I had fortunately learnt a great deal with the
old lady in Tottenham, or I couldn't have satisfied them for a day.
I'm sure I did what few people could have done, and for all that
they treated me from almost the first very badly. I had to be
housemaid as well as lady's maid; the slavery left me every night
worn out with exhaustion. And I hadn't even enough to eat. As time
went on, they treated me worse and worse. They spoke to me often in
a way that made my heart boil, as if they were so many queens, and I
was some poor mean wretch who was honoured by being allowed to toil
for them. Then they quarrelled among themselves unceasingly, and of
course I had to bear all the bad temper. I never saw people hate one
another like those three did; the sisters even scratched each
other's faces in their fits of jealousy, and sometimes they both
stormed at their mother till she went into hysterics, just because
she couldn't give them more money. The only one in the house who
ever spoke decently to me was the son--Alfred Bolter, his name
was. I suppose I felt grateful to him. Once or twice, when he met me
on the stairs, he kissed me. I was too miserable even to resent it.

"I went about, day after day, in a dazed state, trying to make up my
mind to leave the people, but I couldn't. I don't know how it was, I
had never felt so afraid of being thrown out into the world again. I
suppose it was bodily weakness, want of proper food, and overwork. I
began to feel that the whole world was wronging me. Was there never