Read it through once

But now luck seemed to have deserted her. It was the middle of September and she had not yet been able to find the situation she wanted; and it had become more and more distressing to her to refuse sixteen pound a year. She had calculated it all out, and nothing less than eighteen pound was of any use to her. With eighteen pound and a kind mistress who would give her an old dress occasionally she could do very well. But if she didn't find these two pounds she did not know what she should do. She might drag on for a time on sixteen pound, but such wages would drive her in the end into the workhouse. If it were not for the child! But she would never desert her darling boy, who loved her so dearly, come what might. A sudden imagination let her see him playing in the little street, waiting for her to come home, and her love for him went to her head like madness. She wondered at herself; it seemed almost unnatural to love anything as she did this child.