Saturday, 30 July A year or so after, I met her in Regent St. How is this? With these advantages and the education she was giving herself, she thought she might get on: for she was not extravagantβshe cleaned up her own lodgings, she said, before taking her professional walk.
And the girl was as quiet and honest looking and self-possessed as ever. So, after giving her a glass of aleβwhich she did not ask forβwe parted. During the next two or three years I saw her twice or thrice at intervals on duty, and generally stopped to talk. She was always well but not gaudily dressed; always frank and rosy and pleasant, and never importunate: nor did I ever hear her say a vicious word. After this I never saw her till tonight, when I met her in the Strand, walking with another young woman.
To t he Editor of The Times. I am a stranger to all the line sentiments which still linger in the bosom of your correspondent. I have none of those youthful recollections which, contrasting her early days with her present life, aggravate the misery of the latter.
My parents did not give me any education; they did not instil into my mind virtuous precepts nor set me a good example. I do not think of my parents long in their graves with any such compunctions as your correspondent describes. They gave me in their lifetime, according to their means and knowledge, and as they had probably received from their parents, shelter and protection, mixed with curses and caresses. I received all as a matter of course, and, knowing nothing better, was content in that kind of contentedness which springs from insensibility; I returned their affection in like kind as they gave it to me.
As long as they lived, I looked up to them as my parents. I assisted them in their poverty, and made them comfortable. They looked on me and I on them with pride, for I was proud to be able to minister to their wants; and as for shame, although they knew perfectly well the means by which I obtained money, I do assure you, Sir, that by them, as by myself, my success was regarded as the reward of a proper ambition, and was a source of real pleasure and gratification.
