Emancipation Author:Arthur Beckett Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: sleep. I want to get away from it, mother, and I will! You must let me go into the world and earn my own living. I hate this humiliating poverty, and I hate the ... more »country! " The girl spoke with feeling. She felt that the time had come when she could no longer accommodate herself to the present conditions of her everyday life : a monotony that seemed to be mentally stifling her. Astonishment appeared in Mrs Woodhams's face, and she involuntarily allowed one of the garments she held to slip to the floor. " What absurd ideas have you got hold of now, Charity ? This all comes of so much novel-reading. If you did more needlework and less reading you would not have such absurd notions. Now then, put the duster down, and get my work- basket at once." But the girl did not intend to allow the subject to be thus summarily dismissed. She pressed it further : " I want to see the world, mother. I'm tired of being cooped up like a chicken intended for fattening. There is no society in the village; and here one has very little chance of being married." Astonishment bound up words, and for relief Mrs Woodhams plumped into the nearest chair : " Married, Charity ! As soon as you are married your troubles begin." " We are all born to take our share, mother. You have no troubles but those caused by the wants of your children." Mrs Woodhams murmured : " My children! " Her thoughts went back to her many domestic anxieties on their account, and half-unconsciously she commented aloud upon them: " Yes, my children are the cause of all my worries—my children and poverty ! " Her eyes were in tears; pity came into the daughter's face. " Yet now you would not be without one of them, mother." The elder woman brightened : " No, not one." Charity threw an affectionate arm aro...« less