As time went on, and Clementine did not find the extra work for her afternoons that she had promised to find, I realized that she would keep on wasting her free half day, and that he would go from bad to worse if he were not got away from her and out of the streets. I should have known better than to occupy myself with him, but his old shrewd face haunted me until I remonstrated with Clementine, and represented to her the future she was preparing for him. If she could not take care of him, she should send him to school where there were responsible people who could. I suggested a charitable institution of some kind in France where he would be brought up among her people. But this she fought against with a determination I could not understand, until it came out that she had profited by the English law which forces a father to contribute to his illegitimate child's support, and from Ernest's she received weekly three shillings and sixpence. She much preferred to risk her little Ernest's morals than an income that came of itself, and she feared she could no longer claim it if he were beyond the reach of the English courts. She was as doubtful of the result if he were got into a charity school in England, for if he cost her nothing the father might not be compelled to pay. She could be obstinate on occasions, and I was in despair. But by some fortunate chance, a convent at Hampstead was heard of where the weekly charge would just be covered by the father's allowance, and as Clementine could find no argument against it, she had to give in. I breathed freely again, but I was not to be let off so easily. It was simpler to get mixed up in Clementine's affairs than to escape from them. At the convent, the nuns had learned wisdom, and they demanded to be paid weekly in advance. I must have waited until Judgment Day if I had depended upon Clementine to be in advance with anything, and in self-defence I offered to pay the first month. But this settled, at once there was another obstacle to dispose of. A trousseau was required with the little Ernest, and he had no clothes except those on his back. I provided the trousseau. Then the little Ernest rebelled and refused to hear of school unless he was supplied with a top, a mechanical boat, a balloon, and I scarcely remember what besides. I supplied them. Clementine, on her side, began to look harassed and careworn, and I never ventured to ask what conditions he exacted of her, but it was a relief to everybody when, after much shopping and innumerable coaxings and bribes and scenes, at last she got her little Ernest off her hands.