ce! My first fortunate
offense was committed when I was just twelve years old.

"It was evening time. I was half dead with starvation; the rain was
falling; the night was coming on. I begged--openly, loudly, as only
a hungry child can beg. An old lady in a carriage at a shop door
complained of my importunity. The policeman did his duty. The law gave
me a supper and shelter at the station-house that night. I appeared at
the police court, and, questioned by the magistrate, I told my story
truly. It was the every-day story of thousands of children like me; but
it had one element of interest in it. I confessed to having had a father
(he was then dead) who had been a man of rank; and I owned (just as
openly as I owned everything else) that I had never applied to him for
help, in resentment of his treatment of my mother. This incident was
new, I suppose; it led to the appearance of my 'case' in the newspapers.
The reporters further served my interests by describing me as 'pretty
and interesting.' Subscriptions were sent to the court. A benevolent
married couple, in a respectable sphere of life, visited the workhouse
to see me. I produced a favorable impression on them--especially on the
wife. I was literally friendless; I had no unwelcome relatives to follow
me and claim me. The wife was childless; the husband was a good-natured
man. It ended in their taking me away with them to try me in service.

"I have always felt the aspiration, no matter how low I may have fallen,
to struggle upward to a position above me; to rise, in spite of fortune,
superior to my lot in life. Perhaps some of my father's pride may be
at the root of this restless feeling in me. It seems to be a part of
my nature. It brought me into this house--and it will go with me out of
this house. Is it my curse or my blessing? I am not able to decide.

"On the first night when I slept in my new home I said to myself,
'They have taken me to be their servant: I will be something more than
that--they shall end in taking me for their child.' Before I had been a
week in the house I was the wife's favorite companion in the absence
of her husband at his place of business. She was a highly accomplished
woman, greatly her husband's superior in cultivation, and, unfortunately
for herself, also his superior in years. The love was all on her side.
Excepting certain occasions on which he roused her jealousy, they lived
together on sufficiently friendly terms. She was one of