The New Magdalen

"It was evening time. I was half dead with starvation; the rain was

falling; the night was coming on. I begged--openly, loudly, as only

a hungry child can beg. An old lady in a carriage at a shop door

complained of my importunity. The policeman did his duty. The law gave

me a supper and shelter at the station-house that night. I appeared at

the police court, and, questioned by the magistrate, I told my story

truly. It was the every-day story of thousands of children like me; but

it had one element of interest in it. I confessed to having had a father

(he was then dead) who had been a man of rank; and I owned (just as

openly as I owned everything else) that I had never applied to him for

help, in resentment of his treatment of my mother. This incident was

new, I suppose; it led to the appearance of my 'case' in the newspapers.

The reporters further served my interests by describing me as 'pretty

and interesting.' Subscriptions were sent to the court. A benevolent

married couple, in a respectable sphere of life, visited the workhouse

to see me. I produced a favorable impression on them--especially on the

wife. I was literally friendless; I had no unwelcome relatives to follow

me and claim me. The wife was childless; the husband was a good-natured

man. It ended in their taking me away with them to try me in service.

"I have always felt the aspiration, no matter how low I may have fallen,

to struggle upward to a position above me; to rise, in spite of fortune,

superior to my lot in life. Perhaps some of my father's pride may be

at the root of this restless feeling in me. It seems to be a part of

my nature. It brought me into this house--and it will go with me out of

this house. Is it my curse or my blessing? I am not able to decide.

"On the first night when I slept in my new home I said to myself,

'They have taken me to be their servant: I will be something more than

that--they shall end in taking me for their child.' Before I had been a

week in the house I was the wife's favorite companion in the absence

of her husband at his place of business. She was a highly accomplished

woman, greatly her husband's superior in cultivation, and, unfortunately

for herself, also his superior in years. The love was all on her side.

Excepting certain occasions on which he roused her jealousy, they lived

together on sufficiently friendly terms. She was one of the many wives

who resign themselves to be disappointed in their husbands--and he was

one of the many husbands who never know what their wives really think of

them. Her one great happiness was in teaching me. I was eager to learn;

I made rapid progress. At my pliant age I soon acquired the refinements

of language and manner which characterized my mistress. It is only

the truth to say that the cultivation which has made me capable of

personating a lady was her work.