o dispose of Sir Reginald, and now "The Fair Barmaid" had taken
his place. Again the girl went without the uninviting lunch she had
brought from her boarding-house, and again, as before, the fascinating
novel divided her attention with her work. This afternoon she was
detected by the overseer, who spoke a few words of reprimand and ordered
her to put the book away, which she did unwillingly and with heightened
color. It came out again, however, the moment the closing-bell rang;
and, to make up for lost time, was assiduously read during the homeward
walk, and took the place of both supper and sleep till almost daylight
the next morning.

Poor Tessa! she had inherited from her ancestry that love of romance and
adventure which, in their own sunny land, makes the Italians rival the
Orientals in their love of hearing and telling stories. The more
thrilling these stories are, the fuller of passion and crime, the better
they seem to suit the tastes of these fervid and excitable natures. And
she was alone; there was no one to counsel her, no one to love her, no
one even to talk to in the long evenings she must of necessity spend in
her bare room at the factory boarding-house, hot and stifling in summer,
cold and bare in winter. She had been taught to read at the poor-house
school and a stray dime novel happening to fall in her way, her
imagination, waiting for something on which to feed itself, seized upon
the unhealthful food, and gratified taste quickly ripened into
insatiable appetite. The girl read everything she could lay hold of, and
there is always plenty of such literature close at hand and ready to be
devoured. Novels at five cents apiece are sold by the million at country
stores, railway-depots, and news-stations. Ephemeral in their nature,
every one who owns them is ready to lend, give, or throw them away, and
when books fail there are always quantities of "story-papers," full of
the wildest, most improbable, and often vicious tales.

Tessa bought when she had any spare pennies, borrowed and begged when
she had not; read by daylight, and twilight, and lamplight, sitting up
as long as the miserable boarding-house lamps would hold out, and became
so immersed in her world of romance as to become almost oblivious to
outward things.

To do the little girl justice, she was too innocent to understand half
the wickedness which in this way was brought before her notice, but none
the less was she being gradually demoralized