This was my first difficulty, but not the last.  By the advice of the mistress of the boarding-house, I went to several governess agencies, which were advertising for teachers in the daily papers.  At most of these they would not even enter my name, as soon as I confessed my inability to give one or two references to persons who would vouch for my general character, and my qualifications.  This was a fatal impediment, and one that had never occurred to me; yet the request was a reasonable one, even essential.  What could be more suspicious than a girl of my age without a friend to give a guarantee of her respectability?  There seemed no hope whatever of my entering into the ill-paid ranks of governesses.

When a fortnight had passed with no opening for me, I felt it necessary to leave the boarding-house which had been my temporary home.  I must economize my funds, for I did not know how long I must make them hold out.  Wandering about the least fashionable suburbs, where lodgings would cost least, I found a bedroom in the third story of a house in a tolerably respectable street.  The rent was six shillings a week, to be paid in advance.  In this place, I entered upon a new phase of life, so different from that in Sark that, in the delusions which solitude often brings, I could not always believe myself the same person.

A dreamy, solitary, gloomy life; shut in upon myself, with no outlet for association with my fellow creatures.  My window opened upon a back-yard, with a row of half-built houses standing opposite to it.  These houses had been left half-finished, and were partly falling into ruin.  A row of bare, empty window-frames faced me whenever I turned my wearied eyes to the scene without.  Not a sound or sign of life was there about them.  Within, my room was; small and scantily furnished, yet there was scarcely space enough for me to move about it.  There was no table for me to take my meals at, except the top of the crazy chest of drawers, which served as my dressing-table.  One chair, broken in the back, and tied together with a faded ribbon, was the only seat, except my box, which, set in a corner where I could lean against the wall, made me the most comfortable place for resting.  There was a little rusty grate, but it was still summer-time, and there was no need of a fire.  A fire indeed would have been insupportable, for the sultry, breathless atmosphere of August, with the fever-heat of its sun burning in the narrow streets and close yards, made the temperature as parching as an oven.  I panted for the cool cliffs and sweet fresh air of Sark.