ring one. Unlike most women, I thought this a
mercy instead of a misfortune. In my situation (as I soon grew to know)
my becoming a mother would only have proved to be an aggravation of my
hard lot.

"The sort of employment I wanted was not to be got in a day. Good Mr.
Bapchild gave me a character; and our landlord, a worthy man (belonging,
I am sorry to say, to the Popish Church), spoke for me to the steward of
a club. Still, it took time to persuade people that I was the thorough
good cook I claimed to be. Nigh on a fortnight had passed before I got
the chance I had been looking out for. I went home in good spirits (for
me) to report what had happened, and found the brokers in the house
carrying off the furniture which I had bought with my own money for sale
by auction. I asked them how they dared touch it without my leave. They
answered, civilly enough I must own, that they were acting under my
husband's orders; and they went on removing it before my own eyes, to
the cart outside. I ran up stairs, and found my husband on the landing.
He was in liquor again. It is useless to say what passed between us. I
shall only mention that this was the first occasion on which he lifted
his fist, and struck me."

5.

"Having a spirit of my own, I was resolved not to endure it. I ran out
to the Police Court, hard by.

"My money had not only bought the furniture--it had kept the house going
as well; paying the taxes which the Queen and the Parliament asked for
among other things. I now went to the magistrate to see what the Queen
and the Parliament, in return for the taxes, would do for _me._

"'Is your furniture settled on yourself?' he says, when I told him what
had happened.

"I didn't understand what he meant. He turned to some person who was
sitting on the bench with him. 'This is a hard case,' he says. 'Poor
people in this condition of life don't even know what a marriage
settlement means. And, if they did, how many of them could afford to
pay the lawyer's charges?' Upon that he turned to me. 'Yours is a common
case,' he said. 'In the present state of the law I can do nothing for
you.'

"It was impossible to believe that. Common or not, I put my case to him
over again.

"'I have bought the furniture with my own money, Sir,' I says. 'It's
mine, honestly come by, with bill and receipt to prove it. They are
taking it away from me by force, to sell it against my will. Don't tell
me that's the law. This is a Christian co