Chapter 9 The five-shilling piece which Mord Em’ly had received from the princesses for swift honesty was shown to nobody but Ronicker. The coin had a fine, substantial look about it, as though it were capable of almost anything, and Mord Em’ly, having exhibited it to her friend, returned it to her bodice. The two…
Chapter 8 Mord Em’ly became a half-timer, which, interpreted, meant that school claimed her only for an afternoon and the following morning, leaving her free for twenty-four hours to work in the dress-making room or in the laundry. Her conduct improved so much that small money prizes for excellent behaviour accumulated to her credit as…
Chapter 7 Mord Em’ly’s mother justified her daughter’s confidence. The interview took place in the presence of Mrs. Wingham, and the two excellent ladies talked to each other, and at Mord Em’ly. It seemed to Mord Em’ly that her mother’s face was thinner. “As I say, ma’am,” remarked Mord Em’ly’s mother, “I only hope she’s…
Chapter 6 Although, for some time, Mord Em’ly clung persistently to her attitude of reserve, there was little in the Home that escaped her attention. Conducted on the cottage system, the detached buildings bordered an oval, green space, with, at one end, the school-rooms and the infirmary. Each cottage had a “mother” in charge; usually…
Chapter 5 A large, square, green-walled room, with a shuffling crowd at the back; before her, a thoughtful, middle-aged gentleman, on a raised platform, seated at a desk, and signing, with a noisy pen, some blue forms, for which a clerk waited; at the side, two lads, with pencils, one telling the other, in a…
Chapter 4 She leaned forward, and watched the lighted shops, the crowded pavements, and listened hungrily to the noise of traffic. She was so absorbed in doing this that she gave the conductor absently the coppers for a twopenny ticket, and omitted to answer his caustic reference to her outstretched foot. When he had gone…
Chapter 3 If Number Eighteen, Lucella Road, had been able or had found it convenient, to keep up the fine excitement that attended Mord Em’ly’s first evening, it would have met that young woman’s demands. She was not long in discovering that, in effect, the sisters lived, for the most part, a monotonous, uneventful, economical…
Chapter 2 All the members of the Gilliken Gang possessed the privilege which the London girl demands—that of having their evenings for their very own. Some were engaged in a large mineral water factory in Albany Road; two walked over Blackfriars Bridge to the City every morning; the remainder did nothing of a definite character….
Chapter 1 The members of the Gilliken Gang, who, in the slow, thick stream of traffic in Walworth Road, had been noticeable only for the peculiar whistle given when one happened to be for the moment out of sight of her colleagues, turned into Trafalgar Street, and the leader, a round, white-faced young woman of…
A working-class girl in Victorian London starts as a member of a girl-gang, is sent to reform school, and ultimately makes good.