"You want to look for a place already to-day, don't you?" she said. "I can quite understand that you are in some hurry; but, as I have agreed to take care of your soul, I cannot let such an earnest matter as this one pass without giving you a little motherly advice. So many girls arrive in London daily, who have left their homes in the sweetness and innocence of their youth, and who return home quite otherwise. Therefore I should like to know that you are prepared for all dangers which might threaten you. Will you promise to pray to God to take care of you, to assist you, to counsel you, to lead you?"
I promised everything.
"There, then, are several addresses where you may try to find something suitable, and I only hope that you will be received into the bosom of a God-fearing family."
I thanked her very much for the slip of paper she had handed me, and, after I had left her, I sprang upstairs to get my hat and coat. Several of the girls were just putting on their hats, and asked me where I was going to. I told them, whereupon they replied that they wanted to go to the same place, and that I might come with them because they knew the way. Although I felt sincerely grateful for their offer, I was annoyed at the time they took to put on their hats. There was only one looking-glass in the room, and this the girls surrounded, adjusting their hats by the aid of hat-pins, of which they possessed incredible numbers. Whenever I thought that they had at last finished, they took off their hats again, declaring that they did not look their best to-day, and tried all means and ways to look it after all. I stood there waiting for them with my quiet little hat on my head and felt terribly impatient. I longed to find a situation in order to be able to leave the home. The others, it is true, did not seem to have a similar wish. Apparently they were quite contented, even happy, and cared little whether they got a situation or not. A fair girl who was so tall that she towered above the others had given a bold sweep to her great black transparent hat, and was now trying it on.
"Do you find it becoming like that?" she asked, after which she had to turn round and round, and was assured eventually that it was very becoming.
Just when I thought that she looked horrid, she turned to me and said:
"Hurry up, little one; we are almost ready."
"I have been ready for a long time," I answered in surprise.
But now it was her turn to be surprised.
"Surely you don't mean to go out like that?"