Surely that was better than hard work, or remaining satisfied with the station in which God had placed them, as they were told every Sunday they ought to be—if that only meant marriage with Hodge, and the workhouse when she and Hodge would be past work. It was all very well to be called a good girl by the Rector’s wife, to be confirmed, whatever that might mean, as a matter of course, by the Bishop, to sing in the parochial choir, and once a year to be admitted to the privileges of the Sunday-school treat; but that did not buy her a new bonnet, or prevent her wearing her old clothes, or save her from doing a lot of drudgery at times when she preferred romping in the hayfields with Farmer Giles’s sons, strapping young fellows, just as rustic and as ignorant as herself. A time came when she went out to service at a country house just by. A London lady of fashion saw her, was attracted by her appearance, and got her to come to town. The illustrious aristocrat she married was taken with the kitchen wench, as her ladyship indignantly termed her, and then there was a row, and the poor girl was ignominiously discharged to hide her head where she could, and to give birth to an illegitimate child. That aristocratic admirer was Sir Watkin Strahan. Everyone heard the story of Sal’s disgrace in her native village, and she dared not return thither. She had to hide herself in London where she could, and to live as best she could, all the while cherishing a fearful revenge against the gay Baronet. Her aristocratic seducer sent her fifty pounds, with an intimation that in that quarter she was to look for no more, and that she must do the best she could for herself. With that money, later on, she married a Sloville inhabitant, who soon died and left her destitute. Naturally, in her fallen state, she took to drink, and she drank till her good looks were gone—till she was a bundle of filthy rags, till she had lost alike all decency and sense of shame. It was nothing new to her to prowl about London by night when honesty and respectability had gone to bed. She rather liked the excitement of that kind of life. On she went beneath the lamps and the stars, past gin palaces, where fair young girls were learning to fall as completely and rapidly as herself; past cadgers and tramps, like herself on the look-out for what chance might send in their way; past old criminals, training young ones in the same dreary and joyless round. She saw what we all of us see if we walk out of a night, the drunken harlot run in by the police, who stand in admiration as her more fortunate and equally sinning sister drives by in her brougham. She saw ragged, distress, imperiously bidden to be off, whilst wealthy rascality, in pomp and majesty, was drawn in a carriage and pair with fine flunkies behind. She peered into club windows, where rich sinners quaff rich wine in warmth and comfort, while their victims walk the streets in sorrow and despair.