er knew a girl more
unaffectedly modest than Kitty was the next time she met me after her
accident, as we called it.

Said she one day, "Give me a sovereign for this silver (savings out of
the money I had given her), I don't know where to put it, it jingles in
my pocket,--I am afraid of dropping it, and mother finding it out."

She had put it in a crack between the skirting and the inside of a
cupboard lining as near as I could make out, until it was a pound's
worth. "What a pity I can't buy some nice clothes, is it not?" said she.
Poor Kitty was amusing, but I saw she was brewing mischief after she had
had her monthlies, or was what she called "a full woman." Several times
as she took my money she said it was no good to her, as she could only
buy things to eat. She was getting restless. When I told her I should be
in the Strand one day, if it were not wet. "Oh! do come, if it's wet or
not,--I _will_ meet you." "But your mother?" "Don't care,--if she says
anything I'll tell her I'll run away."

Said she one day, "Hasn't Pol got it? her mother has nearly murdered
her,--oh! Lor she is bruised all over." Then she told me that the little
dark girl I had had was caught in the privy with a man,--"oh! such a big
un, he is much taller than you,--she was standing on the privy-seat with
her legs wide open, and he was trying to do it to her." The mother had
suspected, had the little imp watched, and caught the man in the
act. "How he could do it I don't know," said Kit, "but he is a
bargeman,--such a big man!--and the little beast stood on the privy-seat
too." Kitty was scandalized at that.

It was some days before I saw her again, then she was slovenly and had a
black eye, and began to cry. "It's mother," she sobbed, "look here." She
pulled off her things, and showed me wales and bruises. "Mother did it,"
said she sobbing, "my bottom's bruised,--she held me down, and hit me
with a brush,--look," said Kitty turning up her lily-white arse for me
to see.

Her young friend who had not long before had my prick up her cunt, and
then the bargeman's, had sought to excuse herself by saying Kitty was as
bad. Mother told mother, Kitty was battered by her mother, and had been
locked up, there had been row after row, till Kitty would not eat, nor
wash, nor mend,--she fought her mother, she threatened to run away, and
to turn gay. Said the mother, "Your father always said you would, he
would turn round in his grave if he knew what you are