quiet; but, being freed from one bondage, nothing was further from my
thoughts than to enter another. Besides, I did not choose to be a burden
on anyone, and I resolved to "get something to do", to rent a tiny house,
and to make a nest where my mother, my little girl, and I could live
happily together. The difficulty was the "something"; I spent various
shillings in agencies, with a quite wonderful unanimity of failures. I
tried to get some fancy needlework, advertised as an infallible source of
income to "ladies in reduced circumstances"; I fitted the advertisement
admirably, for I was a lady, and my circumstances were decidedly reduced,
but I only earned 4s. 6d. by weeks of stitching, and the materials cost
nearly as much as the finished work. I experimented with a Birmingham
firm, who generously offered everyone an opportunity of adding to their
incomes, and received in answer to the small fee demanded a pencil-case,
with an explanation that I was to sell little articles of that
description--going as far as cruet-stands--to my friends; I did not feel
equal to springing pencil-cases and cruet-stands casually on my
acquaintances, so did not start in that business. It would be idle to
relate all the things I tried, and failed in, until I began to think that
the "something to do" was not so easy to find as I had expected.

I made up my mind to settle at Upper Norwood, near Mr. and Mrs. Scott,
who were more than good to me in my trouble; and I fixed on a very little
house in Colby Road, Gipsy Hill, to be taken from the ensuing Easter.
Then came the question of furniture; a friend of Mr. Scott's gave me an
introduction to a manufacturer, who agreed to let me have furniture for a
bedroom and sitting-room, and to let me pay him by monthly instalments.
The next thing was to save a few months' annuity, and so have a little
money in hand, wherewith to buy necessaries on starting, and to this end
I decided to accept a loving invitation to Folkestone, where my
grandmother was living with two of my aunts, and there to seek some