Yes, to drive off the dullness, thought I; to get rid of the horror of thinking. That is the greatest curse that this class of women have to endure. They cannot bear to think. They must have something "to drive off the dullness." If they have no company, they must play cards, or something else to keep away thought. If they have company, wine is the panacea. They cannot afford to buy it themselves, but they often persuade gentlemen to do so, pretending to be very thirsty, when they have just been drinking, because that is a part of the contract upon which they are kept by the mistress of the house. If a girl had any conscientious scruples about coaxing a gentleman to buy, or about drinking, or wasting all the wine that all of them would buy, she would be trained into the work, or turned out of doors. So that it is a very rare thing for one of them to go to bed sober. In the morning, or rather towards night, when they wake up, they are almost unable to dress themselves for the next scene in the round of dissipation, until they have sent out and got a little cheap rum, "to bring them up."
Those who have studied the life of these poor, wretched women as carefully as I have, will not wonder at the shortness of it.
Of course we accepted the very polite invitation to go in where the young ladies were. We had an object in doing so. Neither of us knew Mrs. Morgan, and if we should inquire for her, if it suited the convenience of madame she would palm off any other one that she thought she could make pass. I adopted my plan of operations very quickly. I thought if they had had no company yet to-night, they had had no wine, and consequently would not be in the best of moods to be communicative. As soon as we were introduced, I ordered a bottle of wine and thought I would find out if either of the three girls present answered to the name of Lucy, and if she did, I intended to whisper one word in her ear, and that word should be "Athalia," and watch what emotion it produced.
It would be entirely impossible for a stranger to form an idea what an emotion the very name of wine caused among them. They were fairly longing for it. We were in the good graces of all the household at once. I pleaded headache not to drink. Lovetree took his glass with them. I fixed upon one that I thought perhaps might be Athalia, but soon found that she was called Nannette.