A Girl of the People by L.T. Meade — Read

Bet wept silently for the greater part of the day which saw her motherless, but in the evening she went out as usual to sell her papers. Her eyes were swollen from the heavy and constant tears she shed, but she had neatly plaited her hair and wound it round her comely head, and she carried herself with even a little more defiance than usual. She was miserable to-night, and she felt that the whole world was against her.

The night, for the time of year was November, was quite in accordance with her feelings. It was damp, a drizzling mist was blown into her face, and the pavements were slippery with that peculiar Liverpool mud which exceeds even London mud in slipperiness. Bet's beat, however, was brightly lighted; there was a public-house at one corner, and a little further up were two gentlemen's clubs. All were brilliant with gaslight, and the girl, wrapping her shawl about her -- she wore no hat or bonnet -- took her accustomed stand. She always avoided the public-house -- not because she feared its tipsy inhabitants, but because she knew no sale for her wares lay there. Her favorite stand was under a lamp post, close to the largest of the clubs. The light of the lamp fell full on her face and figure, and shone on the evening papers which she offered for sale. Her customers came up as usual, bought what they required of her, one or two giving her a careless and some a friendly "good-evening. " No one noticed her pallid cheeks, nor the heavy depths of trouble in her red-brown eyes. Her luck, however, was good, and she had almost sold all her little stock of papers, when a vibrating and rather peculiar voice at her elbow caused her to start and turn quickly.