And there's one thing, too, that's breaking my heart, and makes me long to
die this very minute, even if I didn't go to Heaven at all, Mr. Mackaye."
(And she burst out crying, and between her sobs it came out, as well as
I could gather, that her notion was, that her illness was the cause of
keeping the girls in "_the bad ivay_," as she called it.) "For Lizzy here,
I did hope that she had repented of it after all my talking to her; but
since I've been so bad, and the girls have had to keep me most o' the time,
she's gone out of nights just as bad as ever."
Lizzy had hid her face in her hands the greater part of this speech. Now
she looked up passionately, almost fiercely--
"Repent--I have repented--I repent of it every hour--I hate myself, and
hate all the world because of it; but I must--I must; I cannot see her
starve, and I cannot starve myself. When she first fell sick she kept on as
long as she could, doing what she could, and then between us we only earned
three shillings a week, and there was ever so much to take off for fire,
and twopence for thread, and fivepence for candles; and then we were always
getting fined, because they never gave us out the work till too late on
purpose, and then they lowered prices again; and now Ellen can't work at
all, and there's four of us with the old lady, to keep off two's work that
couldn't keep themselves alone.
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