The Woman who Did by Grant Allen

Not that Herminia had not at times hard struggles and sore temptations. One of the hardest and sorest came when Dolly was about six years old. And this was the manner of it.

One day the child who was to reform the world was returning from some errand on which her mother had sent her, when her attention was attracted by a very fine carriage, stopping at a door not far from their lodgings. Now Dolly had always a particular weakness for everything "grand; " and so grand a turn-out as this one was rare in their neighborhood. She paused and stared hard at it. "Whose is it, Mrs. Biggs? " she asked awe-struck of the friendly charwoman, who happened to pass at the moment, -- the charwoman who frequently came in to do a day's cleaning at her mother's lodging-house. Mrs. Biggs knew it well; "It's Sir Anthony Merrick's," she answered in that peculiarly hushed voice with which the English poor always utter the names of the titled classes. And so in fact it was; for the famous gout doctor had lately been knighted for his eminent services in saving a royal duke from the worst effects of his own self-indulgence.