Hence she did not associate herself with the rank and file of abandoned women; her resorts were not the crowded centres; her abode was not in the quarters consecrated to her business.

In all parts of London there are quiet by-streets of houses given up to lodging-letting, wherein are to be found many landladies, who, good easy souls, trouble little about the private morals of their lodgers, so long as no positive disorder comes about and no public scandal is occasioned.

A girl who says that she is occupied in a workroom is never presumed to be able to afford the luxury of strict virtue, and if 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.