The money left from my father's belongings I resolved to use in
cultivating my voice. I advertised for embroidery and fine sewing
also, and as I was an expert with the needle, I was able to support
myself and lay aside a little sum each week. I trimmed hats at a
small price, and added to my income in various manners, owing to my
French taste and my deft fingers.
"I was desolate, sad, lonely, but not despairing. What woman can
despair when she knows herself loved? To me that consciousness was a
far greater source of happiness than would have been the knowledge
that I was an empress, or the wife of a millionaire, envied by the
whole world. I believed my lover would find me in time, that we
should be reunited. I believed this until I saw the announcement of
his marriage in the press, and read that he and his bride had sailed
for an extended foreign tour; but with this stunning news, there came
to me the strange, sweet, startling consciousness that you, my
darling child, were coming to console me.
"I know that under the circumstances I ought to have been borne down
to the earth with a guilty shame; I ought to have considered you as a
punishment for my sin--and walked in the valley of humiliation and
despair.
"But I did not. I lived in a state of mental exaltation; every
thought was a prayer, every emotion was linked with religious
fervour.
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