Page:Gissing - The Unclassed, vol. I, 1884.djvu/69

Rh such a one, on taking a room, says that "she supposes she may have friends come to see her?" the landlady will understand quite well what is meant, and will either accept or refuse her for a lodger as she sees good. To such houses as these Lotty confined herself. After some three or four years of various experiences, she hit upon the abode in Milton Street, and there had dwelt ever since. She got on well with Mrs. Ledward, and had been able to make comfortable arrangements for Ida. The other lodgers in the house were generally very quiet and orderly people, and she herself was quite successful in arranging her affairs so as to create no disturbance. She had her regular clientèle; she frequented the roads about Regent's Park and Primrose Hill; and—she supported herself and her child.

I am not sure that Ida Starr's bringing up was in any respect inferior to that she would have received in the home of the average London artisan or small tradesman. At six years old she had begun to go to school; Mrs. Ledward's daughter, a girl of seventeen, took her backwards