found astray. She could judge herself,
yes, better than Sidney Kirkwood could judge her. She knew her defects,
knew her vices, and a feud with fate caused her to accept them
defiantly. Many a time had she sobbed out to herself, 'I wish I could
neither read nor write! I wish I had never been told that there is
anything better than to work with one's hands and earn daily bread!'
But she could not renounce the claims that Nature had planted in her,
that her guardians had fostered. The better she understood how
difficult was every way of advancement, the more fiercely resolute was
she to conquer satisfactions which seemed beyond the sphere of her
destiny.

Of late she had thought much of her childish successes in reciting
poetry. It was not often that she visited a theatre (her father had
always refused to let her go with any one save himself or Sidney), but
on the rare occasions when her wish was gratified, she had watched each
actress with devouring interest, with burning envy, and had said to
herself, 'Couldn't I soon learn to do as well as that? Can't I see
where it might be made more lifelike? Why should it be impossible for
me to go on the stage?' In passing a shop-window where photographs were
exposed, she looked for those of actresses, and gazed at them with
terrible intensity. 'I am as good-looking as she is. Why shouldn't _my_
portrait be seen some day in the windows?' And then her heart throbbed,
smitten with passionate desire. As she walked on there was a turbid
gloom about her, and in her ears the echoing of a dread temptation. Of
all this she spoke to nobody.

For she had no friends. A couple of years ago something like an
intimacy had sprung up between her and Bessie Jones (since married and
become Bessie Byass), seemingly on the principle of contrast in
association. Bessie, like most London workgirls, was fond of the
theatre, and her talk helped to nourish the ambition which was secretly
developing in Clara. But the two could not long harmonise. Bessie, just
after her marriage, ventured to speak with friendly reproof of Clara's
behaviour to Sidney Kirkwood. Clara was not disposed to admit freedoms
of that kind; she half gave it to be understood that, though others
might be easily satisfied, she had views of her own on such subjects.
Thereafter Mrs. Byass grew decidedly cool. The other girls with whom
Clara had formal intercourse showed no desire to win her confidence;
they were kept aloof by her reticent c