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

Hester Wright was a popular, but by no means, in the usual acceptance of the word, a specially good woman. She was the reverse of strait-laced; her morals were nothing in particular, and her ideas on all subjects, whether on righteousness or wickedness, the broadest of the broad. She went neither to church nor chapel on Sundays -- she professed no religion, although when pressed on the point she would not admit that it worn't there. "May be it wor," she would say, only she had no time for it just now. She did not blame people for going to the public-house, although she never went herself, simply because that special place did not suit her special temperament; but she was extremely fond of spending her evenings at the penny theatres, or other cheap and decidedly low places of entertainment. There she would enjoy herself, looking on with eager interest at the coarse and gaudy representations of so-called "life. " She would never laugh loudly, however, or applaud noisily, although she encouraged and smiled at those who did. She was very poor, but she was always neat in her person; and the expression in her big black eyes gave her a look a little above her station, so that, although she was not handsome, those who saw her once often turned to glance at her again. Wherever she went, in whatever company she found herself, she was invariably good-natured.

Indeed, although she was not in the least aware of the fact, she was a most unselfish person. If a tired-out and hard-worked mother was seen pushing her way to the front at Hester's favorite theatre, The Cleopatra, Hester invariably resigned her own seat in her favor, and took the baby and amused it while the mother looked on and laughed. For girls and boys, particularly girls and boys who were sweethearting, she had a strong sympathy, getting them together in a very quiet and unobtrusive manner, and taking the keenest pleasure in promoting their happiness. She was extremely popular with the Liverpool girls, and this popularity was the great delight of her life. The girl who would not go near the parson or the Sunday-school teacher, or the Sister of Mercy, would pour out her woes or her joys into Hester's sympathetic ears -- would receive the advice Hester gave, eagerly, and as a rule, if it were palatable or not, act upon it. No handsome young girl had the least cause to be jealous of Hester; for although she was still comparatively young, and had a power of attraction accorded to few women, it was well known in Hester's very wide circle of indiscriminate acquaintances that she had long ago vowed a vow, far more solemn than Bet's in her ignorance, to take to herself no mate, and to share her life with no one. Hester's mate that should have been had gone away far over the ocean and never come back again. He had been drowned at sea; and although she made no fuss and paraded her sorrow before no one, yet other men saw it would be useless to think of her as a wife.