But hardly had I told my story to the matron, repeating my request (very
timidly this time and with such a humble, humble heart) that I might be
allowed to recover my child as soon as I found myself able to provide
for her, than she stopped me and said:
"My dear young person, we could have half the orphan children in London
on your terms. Before we accept such a child as yours we expect the
parent to give us a legal undertaking that she relinquishes all rights
in it until it is sixteen years of age."
"Sixteen? Isn't that rather severe on a mother?" I said.
"Justly severe," said the matron. "Such women should be made to maintain
their children, and thus realise that the way of transgressors is hard."
How I got back to London, whether by rail or tram or on foot, or what
happened on the way (except that darkness was settling down on me,
within and without), I do not know. I only know that very late that
night, as late as eleven o'clock, I was turning out of Park Lane into
Piccadilly, where the poor "public women" with their painted faces,
dangling their little hand-bags from their wrists, were promenading in
front of the gentlemen's clubs and smiling up at the windows.
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