. She was a fairly
clever girl, but no more. She had certain aptitudes and certain talents,
but they did not lie in the teacher's direction. For instance, she was
no musician, and her knowledge of foreign languages was extremely small;
she could read French fairly well, but could not speak it; she had only
a smattering of German, and was not an artist. Her special forte was
English history and literature, and she also had a fair idea of some of
the sciences.

With only these weapons in hand, and the sum of twenty pounds in her
pocket, she was about to fight the world.

She herself knew well, none better, that her weapons were small and her
chance of success not particularly brilliant.

With a good heart, however, she started out from her lodging on the
morning after her arrival in town.

She went to a registry-office in the Strand and entered her name there.
From this office she went to two or three in the West End, and, having
put down her name in each office and answered the questions of the clerk
who took her subscription, returned home.

She had been assured in four different quarters that it was only a
matter of time; that as soon as ever the schools began she would get
employment.

"There is no difficulty," one and all said to her. "You want to get a
teacher's post; you are quite sure to succeed. There will be plenty of
people requiring assistance of all sorts at the schools when the
holidays are over."

"What shall I do in the meantime?" said Florence, who knew that several
weeks of the holidays had yet to run.

"In the meantime," said all these people, "there is nothing to do but
wait."

Florence wondered if she had really left her mother too soon.

"It would have been cheaper to stay on with the little Mummy," she said
to herself; "but, under the circumstances, I could not stay. I dared not
leave myself in Bertha's power. August is nearly through, and the
schools will open again about the 20th of September. By then I shall
surely hear of something. Oh, it is hateful to teach; but there is no
help for it."

Accordingly Florence returned home in as fair spirits as was to be
expected.

She wrote and told her mother what she had done, and resolved to spend
her time studying at the British Museum.

There were not many people yet in London, and she felt strange and
lonely. A great longing for her old school life visited her. She
wondered where her schoolfellows had gone, and what they were doing, an