She went up a dark entry to rest her weary limbs on a doorstep and
think. Her elbows on her knees, her face hidden in her hands, she
tried to gather together and arrange her thoughts. But still every
now and then she opened her hand to see if the paper were yet there.
She got up at last. She had formed a plan, and had a course of
action to look forward to that would satisfy one craving desire at
least. The time was long gone by when there was much wisdom or
consistency in her projects.
It was getting late, and that was so much the better. She went to a
pawnshop, and took off her finery in a back room. She was known by
the people, and had a character for honesty, so she had no very
great difficulty in inducing them to let her have a suit of outer
clothes, befitting the wife of a working-man, a black silk bonnet, a
printed gown, a plaid shawl, dirty and rather worn to be sure, but
which had a sort of sanctity to the eyes of the street-walker as
being the appropriate garb of that happy class to which she could
never, never more belong.
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