She resumed her mournful, melancholy walk, now slow in pace and drooping in gait.
Time was wearing on—nine o'clock would soon strike—and if she were ever to take the first step in a loathsome trade, now was the moment!
Think not, reader, that because this young woman had become the mistress of a thief, and had passed through all the training of a low lodging-house and several weeks of misery and want,—think not that she was prepared to rush at once and in a moment on a career of public prostitution! No: she was attached to her lover, in the first place;—and secondly, she was no brazen-faced slut, whose mind had derived coarseness from intemperance, or callousness from ill-treatment.
She shrank from the path which alone seemed open to her: she recoiled from the ways into which a stern necessity commanded her to enter.
While she was endeavouring to subdue the bitterness of the reflections which crowded upon her soul, a young woman, scarcely a year older than herself, accosted her, and said, "My dear, are you come on this beat to be one of us?"
Matilda saw by a glance that the female was one of the lowest class of prostitutes; and she burst into tears.
"Oh! then, you are come out for that purpose!" exclaimed the other. "Well, you must pay your footing at all events;"—and making a signal to several of her friends who stood at a short distance, she cried, "Here's a precious lark! a gal which wants to be one of us, and is blubbering at it!"
Matilda was now surrounded by loose women, who vowed that she should treat them, or they would tear her eyes out.
Vainly did she protest that she had no money: tears and remonstrances were of no avail; and the prostitutes were growing more clamorous,—for, it must be remembered, there were no New Police in those days,—when an old man, decently dressed, but horribly ugly, stopped near the group and asked what was the matter.
"Here's a young gal which wants to go upon the town, and can't pay her footing," explained one of the loose women; "and so she shan't come on our beat."