Her clothes were her great difficulty, and she often thought that she would rather go back to the slavery of the house in Chelsea than bear the humiliation of going out any longer on Sunday in the old things that the servants had seen her in for eight or nine months or more. She was made to feel that she was the lowest of the low--the servant of servants. She had to accept everybody's sneer and everybody's bad language, and oftentimes gross familiarity, in order to avoid arguments and disputes which might endanger her situation. She had to shut her eyes to the thefts of cooks; she had to fetch them drink, and to do their work when they were unable to do it themselves. But there was no help for it. She could not pick and choose where she would live, and any wages above sixteen pound a year she must always accept, and put up with whatever inconvenience she might meet. Hers is an heroic adventure if one considers it--a mother's fight for the life of her child against all the forces that civilisation arrays against the lowly and the illegitimate. She is in a situation to-day, but on what security does she hold it? She is strangely dependent on her own health, and still more upon the fortunes and the personal caprice of her employers; and she realised the perils of her life when an outcast mother at the corner of the street, stretching out of her rags a brown hand and arm, asked alms for the sake of the little children. Esther remembered then that three months out of a situation and she too would be on the street as a flower-seller, match-seller, or---- It did not seem, however, that any of these fears were to be realised. Her luck had mended; for nearly two years she had been living with some rich people in the West End; she liked her mistress and was on good terms with her fellow servants, and had it not been for an accident she could have kept this situation. The young gentlemen had come home for their summer holidays; she had stepped aside to let Master Harry pass on the stairs. But he did not go by, and there was a strange smile on his face. "Look here, Esther, I'm awfully fond of you. You are the prettiest girl I've ever seen. Come out for a walk with me next Sunday." "Master Harry, I'm surprised at you; will you let me go by at once?" There was no one near, the house was silent, and the boy stood on the step above her. He tried to throw his arm round her waist, but she shook him off and went up to her room calm with indignation. A few days afterward she suddenly became aware that he was following her in the street. She turned sharply upon him. "Master Harry, I know that this is only a little foolishness on your part, but if you don't leave off I shall lose my situation, and I'm sure you don't want to do me an injury."