"Kiss me," she said.
I ran into her dear arms, and laid my head on her shoulder.
"Oh, you are the sweetest thing on earth," I said, "and it is because you are, and because I love you so passionately, I will not let you degenerate. I will find my way through somehow."
I left mother a moment later, and I will own it, went to my own lovely, lovely room, suitable for a girl who moved in the best society, and burst into tears. It was astonishing what a sudden passion I had taken, as my friends would say, to degrade myself; but this did not look like degradation in my eyes, it was just honest work. We wanted money, and we would earn it; we would go in debt to no man; we would earn money for ourselves. But then the thought came to me, "Was my scheme too expensive? had I any right to saddle mother with such an enormous rent?" I had always considered myself a very fair arithmetician, and I now sat down and went carefully into accounts. I smile to this day as I think of myself seated at my little table in the big bay window of my bedroom, trying to make out with pencil and paper how I could keep 17 Graham Square going—I, a girl without capital, without knowledge, without any of the sort of experience which alone could aid me in a crisis of this sort.
I spent the rest of the day in very low spirits, for my accounts would not, however hard I tried, show any margin of profit.
The more difficulties came in my way, however, the more determined was I to overcome them. Presently I took a sheet of paper and wrote a few lines to Mr. Hardcastle. I knew his address, and wrote to him direct.
"Dear sir," I said, "will you oblige me by letting me know what capital my mother will require in order to become your tenant for 17 Graham Square."
I signed this letter, adding a postscript, "An early answer will oblige."
I received the answer about noon the following day.
"Dear Miss Wickham,—Your letter puzzles me. I see you have a great deal of pluck and endeavour, and I should certainly do my utmost to please you, but I cannot let you have the house under a capital of five thousand pounds."