In Birmingham I began to change my old habits; but more in what I thought than what I did.

I wished to enjoy myself like other girls, but I couldn't.

For one thing, I thought it wicked; and then I was so afraid of spending a penny--I had so often known what it was to be in want of a copper to buy food.
So I lived quite alone; sat in my room every evening and read books.
You could hardly believe what a number of books I read in that year.
Sometimes I didn't go to bed till two or three o'clock." "What sort of books ?" "I got them from the Free Library--books of all kinds; not only novels.
I've never been particularly fond of novels; they always made me feel my own lot all the harder.

I never could understand what people mean when they say that reading novels takes them 'out of themselves.' It was never so with me.

I liked travels and lives of people, and books about the stars.