from any idea of what I was doing.

"Once in the street I knew not where to turn, and taking refuge in a
church I stayed there like one in a dream till noon. Think of my
position. I was hungry, I had no refuge, nothing but the clothes I wore,
nothing that would get me a morsel of bread. A woman accosted me in the
street. I knew her and I also knew that she kept a servants' agency. I
asked her forthwith if she could get me a place.

"'I had enquiries about a maid this morning,' said she, 'but it is for a
gay woman, and you are pretty. You would have a good deal of difficulty
in remaining virtuous.'

"'I can keep off the infection,' I answered, 'and in the position I am in
I cannot pick and choose.'

"She thereupon took me to the lady, who was delighted to see me, and
still more delighted when I told her that I had never had anything to do
with a man. I have repented of this lie bitterly enough, for in the week
I spent at that profligate woman's house I have had to endure the most
humiliating insults that an honest girl ever suffered. No sooner did the
men who came to the house hear that I was a maid than they longed to
slake their brutal lust upon me, offering me gold if I would submit to
their caresses. I refused and was reviled, but that was not all. Five or
six times every day I was obliged to remain a witness of the disgusting
scenes enacted between my mistress and her customers, who, when I was
compelled to light them about the house at night, overwhelmed me with
insults, because I would not do them a disgusting service for a
twelve-sous piece. I could not bear this sort of life much longer, and I
was thinking of drowning myself. When you came you treated me so
ignominiously that my resolve to die was strengthened, but you were so
kind and polite as you went away that I fell in love with you directly,
thinking that Providence must have sent you to snatch me away from the
abyss. I thought your fine presence might calm my mother and persuade her
to take me back till my lover came to marry me. I was undeceived, and I
saw that she took me for a prostitute. Now, if you like, I am altogether
yours, and I renounce my lover of whom I am no longer worthy. Take me as
your maid, I will love you and you only; I will submit myself to you and
do whatever you bid me."

Whether it were weakness or virtue on my part, this tale of woe and a
mother's too great severity drew tears from my eyes, and when she saw my
emotion she wep