With only these weapons in hand, and the sum of twenty pounds in her pocket, she was about to fight the world.
She herself knew well, none better, that her weapons were small and her chance of success not particularly brilliant.
With a good heart, however, she started out from her lodging on the morning after her arrival in town.
She went to a registry-office in the Strand and entered her name there. From this office she went to two or three in the West End, and, having put down her name in each office and answered the questions of the clerk who took her subscription, returned home.
She had been assured in four different quarters that it was only a matter of time; that as soon as ever the schools began she would get employment.
"There is no difficulty," one and all said to her. "You want to get a teacher's post; you are quite sure to succeed. There will be plenty of people requiring assistance of all sorts at the schools when the holidays are over."
"What shall I do in the meantime?" said Florence, who knew that several weeks of the holidays had yet to run.
"In the meantime," said all these people, "there is nothing to do but wait."
Florence wondered if she had really left her mother too soon.
"It would have been cheaper to stay on with the little Mummy," she said to herself; "but, under the circumstances, I could not stay. I dared not leave myself in Bertha's power. August is nearly through, and the schools will open again about the 20th of September. By then I shall surely hear of something. Oh, it is hateful to teach; but there is no help for it."