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Allen, Grant, 1848-1899

"The Woman Who Did"

I must
train her up to be a useful citizen. Not for thousands would I
resign the delight and honor of teaching my child to those who
would teach her what Alan and I believed to be pernicious; who
would teach her to despise her mother's life, and to reject the
holy memory of her father. As I said to you before, that day at
Perugia, so I say to you now, 'Thy money perish with thee.' You
need never again come here to bribe me."
"Is that final?" Sir Anthony asked. And Herminia answered with a
bow, "Yes, final; quite final."
Sir Anthony bent his head and left. Herminia stood face to face
with abject poverty. Spurred by want, by indignation, by terror,
by a sense of the absolute necessity for action, she carried her
writing materials then and there into Dolly's sick-room, and
sitting by her child's cot, she began to write, she hardly knew
what, as the words themselves came to her. In a fever of
excitement she wrote and wrote and wrote. She wrote as one writes
in the silence of midnight. It was late before she finished. When
her manuscript was complete, she slipped out and posted it to a
weekly paper.


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