I paid for my weakness, though, and have reason to remember it.
The extortions of the Olivers had brought me to so narrow a margin
between my earnings and expenses that I lay awake nearly all that night
thinking what I could do to increase the one or reduce the other. The
only thing I found possible was to change to cheaper quarters. So next
morning, with a rather heavy heart, I asked Mrs. Abramovitch if the room
at the back of the house was still empty, and hearing that it was I
moved into it the same day.
That was a small and not a very wise economy.
My new room was cheerless as well as dark, with no sights but the
clothes that were drying from the pulley-lines and no sounds but the
whoops of the boys of the neighbourhood playing at "Red Indians" on the
top of the yard walls.
But it was about the same as the other in size and furniture, and after
I had decorated it with my few treasures--the Reverend Mother's rosary,
which I hung on the head of the bed, and my darling mother's miniature,
which I pinned up over the fire--I thought it looked bright and
homelike.
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