e of riot for its own sake; she would
greatly have preferred a decent mode of life, had it seemed
practicable. Hence she did not associate herself with the rank and file
of abandoned women; her resorts were not the crowded centres; her abode
was not in the quarters consecrated to her business. In all parts of
London there are quiet by-streets of houses given up to
lodging-letting, wherein are to be found many landladies, who, good
easy souls, trouble little about the private morals of their lodgers,
so long as no positive disorder comes about and no public scandal is
occasioned. A girl who says that she is occupied in a workroom is never
presumed to be able to afford the luxury of strict virtue, and if such
a one, on taking a room, says that "she supposes she may have friends
come to see her?" the landlady will understand quite well what is
meant, and will either accept or refuse her for a lodger as she sees
good. To such houses as these Lotty confined herself. After some three
or four years of various experiences, she hit upon the abode in Milton
Street, and there had dwelt ever since. She got on well with Mrs.
Ledward, and had been able to make comfortable arrangements for Ida.
The other lodgers in the house were generally very quiet and orderly
people, and she herself was quite successful in arranging her affairs
so as to create no disturbance. She had her regular _clientele_; she
frequented the roads about Regent's Park and Primrose Hill; and she
supported herself and her child.

Ida Starr's bringing up was in no respect inferior to that she would
have received in the home of the average London artisan or small
tradesman. At five years old she had begun to go to school; Mrs.
Ledward's daughter, a girl of seventeen, took her backwards and
forwards every day. At this school she remained three years and a half;
then her mother took her away, and put her under the care of Miss
Rutherford, a better teacher. When at home, she either amused herself
in Lotty's room, or, when that was engaged, made herself comfortable
with Mrs. Ledward's family, with one or other of whom she generally
passed the night. She heard no bad language, saw nothing improper,
listened to no worse conversation than any of the other children at
Miss Rutherford's. Even at her present age of ten it never occurred to
her to inquire how her mother supported herself. The charges brought by
Harriet Smales conveyed to her mind no conception of their true
mea