Let her have lost her child, and she would speedily have fallen into the last stages of degradation.

But the little one lived.

She had called it Ida, a name chosen from some tale in the penny weeklies, which were the solace of her misery.

She herself took the name of Starr, also from a page of fiction.
Balancing the good and evil of this life in her dark little mind, Lotty determined that one thing there was for which it was worth while to make sacrifices, one end which she felt strong enough to keep persistently in view.

Ida should be brought up "respectably"-- it was her own word; she should be kept absolutely free from the contamination of her mother's way of living; nay, should, when the time came, go to school, and have good chances.