Her mirth the world required;
    She bathed it in smiles of glee. 
    But her heart was tired, tired,
    And now they let her be.

    Her life was turning, turning,
    In mazes of heat and sound,
    But for peace her soul was yearning,
    And now peace laps her round.

    Her cabin’d, ample spirit,
    It flutter’d and fail’d for breath. 
    To-night it doth inherit
    The vasty hall of death.

CHAPTER III

SLUMMING IN LONDON; ADVENTURE IN WHITECHAPEL; BRAWL IN A SALOON; OUTINGS WITH WORKING GIRLS—­MARGOT MEETS THE PRINCESS OF WALES—­ GOSSIP OVER FRIENDSHIP WITH PRINCE OF WALES—­LADY RANDOLPH CHURCHILL’S BALL—­MARGOT’S FIRST HUNT; ECCENTRIC DUKE OF BEAUFORT; FALLS IN LOVE AT SEVENTEEN; COMMANDEERS A HORSE

After Laura’s death I spent most of my time in the East End of London.  One day, when I was walking in the slums of Whitechapel, I saw a large factory and girls of all ages pouring in and out of it.  Seeing the name “Cliffords” on the door, I walked in and asked a workman to show me his employer’s private room.  He indicated with his finger where it was and I knocked and went in.  Mr. Cliffords, the owner of the factory, had a large red face and was sitting in a bare, squalid room, on a hard chair, in front of his writing-table.  He glanced at me as I shut the door, but did not stop writing.  I asked him if I might visit his factory once or twice a week and talk to the work-girls.  At this he put his pen down and said: 

“Now, miss, what good do you suppose you will do here with my girls?”

Margot:  “It is not exactly that.  I am not sure I can do any one any good, but do you think I could do your girls any harm?”

Cliffords:  “Most certainly you could and, what is more, you will”

Margot:  “How?”

Cliffords:  “Why, bless my soul!  You’ll keep them all jawing and make them late for their work!  As it is, they don’t do overmuch.  Do you think my girls are wicked and that you are going to make them good and happy and save them and all that kind of thing?”

Margot:  “Not at all; I was not thinking of them, I am so very unhappy myself.”

Cliffords (rather moved and looking at me with curiosity):  “Oh, that’s quite another matter!  If you’ve come here to ask me a favour, I might consider it.”

Margot (humbly):  “That is just what I have come for.  I swear I would only be with your girls in the dinner interval, but if by accident I arrive at the wrong time I will see that they do not stop their work.  It is far more likely that they won’t listen to me at all than that they will stop working to hear what I have to say.”

Cliffords:  “Maybe!”

So it was fixed up.  He shook me by the hand, never asked my name and I visited his factory three days a week for eight years when I was in London (till I married, in 1894).