ke anybody
drunk for fourpence."

Unfortunately (being a little weak) I was always heavy in the mornings,
but by great luck my room faced the east, so I conceived the idea of
moving my bed up to the window and drawing my blinds to the top so that
the earliest light might fall on my face and waken me.

This device succeeded splendidly, and for many weeks of the late summer
and early autumn I was up before the sun, as soon as the dawn had
broadened and while the leaden London daylight was filtering through the
smoke of yesterday.

By this means I increased my earnings to sixteen shillings, and, as my
fingers learned to fly over their work, to seventeen and even eighteen.

That was my maximum, and though it left a narrow margin for other needs
it enabled me at the end of a month to pay another pound for baby's
board and to put away a little towards her "shortening," which Mrs.
Oliver was always saying must be soon.

I had to stick close to maintain this average, and I grudged even the
time occupied in buying and eating my food, though that was not a long
process in the Mile End Road, which is full of shops where things can be
bought ready cooked. After the first week I did not even need to go out
for them, for they were brought round to my room every morning, thus
enabling me to live without leaving my work.

It was a stiff life, perhaps, but let nobody think I looked upon myself
as a slave. Though I worked so hard I felt no self-pity. The thought
that I was working for my child sweetened all my labours. It was such a
joy to think that baby depended upon me for everything she wanted.

Being so happy in those days I sang a great deal, though naturally not
in the middle of the day, when our house was going like a mill-wheel,
but in the early mornings before the electric trams began to clang, or
the hawkers with their barrows to shout, and when there was no sound
even in the East End except that ceaseless tramp, tramp, tramp in the
front street which always made me think of the children of Israel in
Egypt drawing burdens for Pharaoh.

Throwing open my window I sang all sorts of things, but, being such a
child myself and so fond of make-believe, I loved best to sing my
lullaby, and so pretend that baby was with me in my room, lying asleep
behind me in my bed.

"_Sleep, little baby, I love thee, I love thee,
Sleep, little Queen, I am bending above thee_."

I never knew that I had any other audience than a