“I will exert myself,” she said; “I will face my trial; I will be firm, and meet the worst, as becomes a——No—no—no!—not that name; I must breathe that name no more.”
Once again she pressed her hands convulsively over her eyes, but she removed them quickly.
“Bear with me,” she said; “I will not distress you again by giving way to my sorrow; but, with patience and fortitude, I will look back on the past, and await the future.”
Lotte replied in hopeful language, and assisted her to dress. She saw, with an astonishment she could scarcely conceal, how much help her guest required, and how natural it seemed for her to expect it to be afforded her. Helen, on the other hand, could not avoid noticing how unused Lotte was to her task, and said, with a faint smile—
“I must learn to dress myself. It will serve to pave the way for the many changes I shall have to encounter. I shall, no doubt, be troublesome to you at first; but I trust, by persevering efforts, to acquire that selfreliance I now understand to be so essential to my new condition in life.”
And she kept her word, At first she looked upon every feature of her altered position with wonder; the novelty of the circumstances by which she was surrounded helped in some degree to alleviate her anguish, and served to teach her a lesson of life she could scarcely have obtained through any other medium. Everything about her was different to what she had been accustomed. Life itself seemed to be squeezed into such narrow limits. The rooms, the sparse furniture, the appointments at meals, even the meals themselves, with no one to wait at table to hand anything, all seemed small and poverty-stricken, and she kept wondering why the apartments should be so cramped, and why the comforts and the luxuries she had possessed at home were not here.
She even hinted so much to Lotte, who explained to her that the distinction was occasioned by the difference of income. Poor Lotte! she had flattered herself that her little room was a small terrestrial paradise. However, she did not spare herself, but went so much into her own circumstances as to show that, by incessant labour, she realised an income which, when fairly, justly, and economically apportioned, enabled her to accomplish—no more than Helen saw around her.
Helen heard the amount of her weekly earnings with an air of incredulity.
“Can it be possible, that you toil so long and so wearily for a sum so small?” she asked.
“Ah, but I am rather fortunate,” said Lotte, with a cheerful smile, and added with a grave and thoughtful face—“Oh, Miss Grahame, many, many hundred girls and women, some with families, work harder and longer hours than I do, for less than half that sum.”