Lilith, perhaps mistaking her continued silence for mistrust, said at length:
“You have been very kind to me, a perfect stranger to you, ma’am, and I thank you from my heart; but do not trouble your kind soul about me, ma’am. It is not worth your while, indeed.”
“Oh, it is easy to say that, my dear; but I can’t help troubling myself about you! Suppose you were my own Edith or Clara? But don’t be afraid, my dear; I won’t ask anything about your past; what I want to know is your future. You said when you started for New York that you wished to get away from painful associations; now what I wish to ask is, where do you intend to go in New York, and what do you intend to do?”
“I shall go first to some hotel, the only place a stranger can go to, I suppose, and then I mean to look out for some employment.”
“Then, my dear, you are all wrong. In the first place, you must not go to a hotel,” said Mrs. Ponsonby.
“But why?” inquired Lilith.
“Because you would go as a lamb among wolves. That is why.”
“Then I suppose I must try to find a private boarding-house.”
“Worse and worse! A respectable boarding-house would want references, and if you happened to apply to any but a respectable one——”
“That is the reason why I wished to go to one of the first-class hotels. They are always very respectable. No one can make a mistake about them, and they take strangers without references.”