A Girl of the People

Bet wept silently for the greater part of the day which saw her motherless, but in the evening she went out as usual to sell her papers. Her eyes were swollen from the heavy and...

"No, no, not she,--she's a good 'un, Bet is,--come along, Bet. Joe Wilkins is waiting for us round the corner, and he says Sam is to be there, and Jimmy, and Hester Wright: do c...

In this land of justice there is nothing more incomprehensible than the extraordinary weight and power of merely circumstantial evidence. Never was there a more honest young fel...

When Hester left the jail she went straight to Sparrow Street. She knew that Bet had gone back there, and felt pretty certain either that she would see the girl herself or be ab...

Soap-and-Water can effect wonders, and by the evening Bet's attic looked like another place. She and the boys had worked with hearty good-will; three pairs of vigorous young arm...

Will Scarlett's wedding-day had very nearly come. This was Tuesday, and on the following Thursday he and Bet were to go to church together, and to be made man and wife. On the f...

With people in Bet Granger's class the time between the wooing and the wedding is seldom long. Will would not go to sea until Bet was his wife, and so it was decided by the two...

In Liverpool there are, perhaps more than in any town in the world, all sorts and conditions of men. The very wealthy and the very poor are to be found within its precincts--als...

Will's objection to so sudden a marriage was overruled by Bet's fervor and impetuosity; she would not listen to his objections, but every time he opened his lips shut him up wit...

MRS. Granger lingered all through that night, but she scarcely said anything more, and in the cold dawn of the morning her spirit passed very quietly away. The two little boys o...

Hester Wright was a popular, but by no means, in the usual acceptance of the word, a specially good woman. She was the reverse of strait-laced; her morals were nothing in partic...

Bet generally bought her papers at a tiny shop not far from her old home. She got them at wholesale price, and was well known to the woman who kept the shop. This person regarde...

Hester was excited and overwrought; she could not meet any of the crowd, and took refuge in one of the deserted wings, until, as she hoped, every one had dispersed. As she was q...

In due course Mrs. Granger received a decent burial. There was money enough for this purpose in the burial club to which Granger subscribed; and Bet, rather to her surprise, saw...

A few days before the present date of this story a fair-haired young lady, with gentle, beautiful brown eyes, who was known in many of the Liverpool slums as Sister Mary, was go...

"Eh! is that you, Bet Granger?" he exclaimed. "Eh--you are in a taking. You might stop a minute to pass a civil good-morning with a chap. Well, what a gel that is! But ain't she...

The captain was very ill, but he was no longer uncared for. In the attic which Bet had rendered clean and sweet, he lay and tossed on his hard and feverish bed. His weakness and...

Dent soon made terms with the girl who was to accommodate Bet with half her room. Her terms were half-a-crown a week, which Dent offered to provide. Bet, however, scowled at him.

Two or three days after Will's second examination before the magistrates-an examination which had ended, owing to Dent's testimony against him, in his being remanded for trial a...

A few of the worst courts in Liverpool are absolutely without gaslight. It was into one of these now that Bet ventured. She leaned her back against the slimy, slippery, dirty wa...

It sometimes happens that a very valiant and resolute spirit is contained in a small body. Bet Granger's little brothers, known in the slums as the captain and the general, were...

As Will Scarlett walked home to the small room which he occupied, not very far from his cousin Hester Wright, he was overtaken by a young sailor of about his own age, who linked...

If ever a girl ought to feel happy it should be on the eve of her wedding-day. To a great many, however, this turning-point in life, this step into a new and unknown world, is f...

Bet went home, and all Wednesday she stayed indoors, taking little or no notice of her brothers, and never alluding to the subject of the wedding which was to take place the nex...

"Bet," said Will, when they got outside; "Bet, I'm here. What is it? You're in trouble. I can tell by the way you turn your head away as you're in sore trouble. Why, there--you'...

"There are all kinds of love," she kept muttering to herself--"all kinds-there's the love that gives, and the love that gets. Seems to me that mine must be the love that gives."

When Bet Granger ran past the open doorway of Mother Bunch's room she had very little idea that in a corner of that room, tied firmly into a chair, sat her bridegroom of to-morr...

The police were searching everywhere for a sailor called Dent. They set detectives to work, and had little doubt that long before the week had expired for which Will had been re...

Isaac Dent did indeed feel himself a triumphant man. If such a nature as his could possibly know anything of love, he had something which he called by that name for the handsome...

"You ha' got to hear my terms, father," she said. "I'll be a good daughter to you, but I want Will out of prison. You don't suppose as I don't know what you and Isaac Dent ha' d...

The dread of corporal punishment, the dire sensation of fear, is about the only weapon which produces salutary results on certain individuals. They belong to the lowest of the r...

"So _you_ say. Well, set down, man. We has half-an-hour afore us, and I've got to think one or two things out. Are you quite aware, or must I make it plainer to yer, the only wa...

When Bet got to Liverpool she went straight to Paradise Row. She intended to spend the night with Mother Bunch, to borrow a little money from her, and to return to Warrington by...