Page:Gissing - The Unclassed, vol. I, 1884.djvu/64

 vulgar and commonplace in many of its features, though her subsequent conduct in some degree f redeemed it. She was sent to a day-school till the age of thirteen, then had to become her father’s housekeeper. Her friends were very few, none of them likely to be of use to her. Left very much to her own control, she made an acquaintance which led to secret intimacy and open disaster. Rather than face her father with such a disclosure, she left home, and threw herself upon the mercy of the man who had assisted her to go astray. He was generous enough to support her for about a year, during which time her child was born. Then his help ceased.

The familiar choice lay before her—home again, the streets, or starvation. Hardship she could not bear; the second alternative she shrank from on account of her child; she determined to face her father. For him she had no affection, and knew that he did not love her; only desperation could