Jill: a Flower Girl by L.T. Meade

Susy Carter was one of those self-reliant people who are not over-troubled with conscience. Her nerves were in excellent order. She did not consider herself _vain_, but she was thoroughly satisfied with her life, with her ways, with her ideas. She utterly scorned the flower girls who did not live up to the high standard which she had set herself. Had Susy been born in a different station of life, she would have gone in for the education craze, for the women's suffrage question, and for all those extreme ideas of so-called emancipation which agitated the breasts of the sterner members of her sex.

Susy was not lovable, nor did she greatly love anyone but herself. She was ambitious and intended to rise in the world. Even a London flower girl can have ambition. As in all other callings, that of the flower girl has many grades. Between the poor, little, sloppy, ragged victim, who hawks miserable, withered flowers, reeking with stale vegetation and the infection of badly ventilated rooms, and such a flower girl as Susy Carter, there is a very vast gulf fixed.