besides the woman I ventured the request--"Would she give me a roll
for this handkerchief?"

She looked at me with evident suspicion: "Nay, she never sold stuff i'
that way."

Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. "How could
she tell where I had got the handkerchief?" she said.

"Would she take my gloves?"

"No! what could she do with them?"

Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is
enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I
can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral
degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a
recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who
repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not
be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a
well-dressed beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was
employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? Not,
certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who
knew nothing about my character. And as to the woman who would not take
my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the
offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me
condense now. I am sick of the subject.

A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which the
farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I stopped and
said--

"Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry." He cast on me
a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice from
his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a beggar,
but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown
loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down and ate it.

I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood
I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the
ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more
than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of
safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards morning it rained; the
whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader, to give a
minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was
repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did food pass my lips. At the
door of a cottage I saw a li