Now there had come upon her the first great grief.  She had caused her mother bitter suffering, and her own heart was filled with a commensurate pain.  Had she been a little older she would already have been troubled by another anxiety; for the last two years her mother’s health had been falling away; every now and then had come a fit of illness, and at other times Lotty suffered from a depression of spirits which left her no energy to move about.  Ida knew that her mother was often unhappy, but naturally could not dwell long on this as soon as each successive occasion had passed away.  Indeed, in her heart, she almost welcomed such times, since she was then allowed to sleep upstairs, one of her greatest joys.  Lotty was only too well aware of the physical weakness which was gaining upon her.  She was mentally troubled, moreover.  Ida was growing up; there would come a time, and that very shortly, when it would be necessary either for them to part, or else for herself to change her mode of life.  Indeed, she had never from the first quite lost sight of her intention to seek for an honest means of support; and of late years the consciousness of her hopeless position had grown to an ever-recurring trouble.  She knew the proposed step was in reality impossible to her, yet she persistently thought and talked of it.  To Mrs. Ledward she confided at least once a week, generally when she paid her rent, her settled intention to go and find work of some kind in the course of the next two or three days; till at length this had become a standing joke with the landlady, who laughed merrily as often as the subject was mentioned.  Lotty had of late let her thoughts turn to her father, whom she had never seen since their parting.  Not with any affection did she think of him, but, in her despairing moments, it seemed to her impossible that he should still refuse aid if she appealed to him for it.  Several times of late she had been on the point of putting her conviction to the test.  She had passed his house from time to time, and knew that he still lived there.  Perhaps the real reason of her hesitation was, not fear of him, but a dread, which she would not confess to herself, lest he should indeed prove obdurate, and so put an end to her last hope.  For what would become of her and of Ida if her health absolutely failed?  The poor creature shrank from the thought in horror.  The hope connected with her father grew more and more strong.  But it needed some very decided crisis to bring her to the point of overcoming all the apprehensions which lay in the way of an appeal to the stern old man This crisis had arrived.  The illness which was now upon her she felt to be more serious than any she had yet suffered.  Suppose she were to die, and Ida to be left alone in the world Even before she heard of the child’s dismissal from school she had all but made up her mind to write to her father, and the shock of that event gave her the last impulse.  She wrote a letter of pitiful entreaty.  Would he help her to some means of earning a living for herself and her child?  She could not part from Ida.  Perhaps she had not long to live, and to ask her to give up her child would be too cruel.  She would do anything, would go into service, perform the hardest and coarsest toil.  She told him how Ida had been brought up, and implored his pity for the child, who at all events was innocent.