Dolly leant back in an easy chair with her feet, in smart velvet slippers, resting on a stool, and, since her skirts were slightly raised, I was able to see her trim ankles cased in pale blue silk stockings.
I lit a cigar and settled myself in another easy chair opposite her. She then began to tell me her story, which turned out to be a very long one.
The tale was not nearly finished when we went to bed after a little supper at midnight. But, having got interested in the narrative, I wished to hear the end of it, so I paid Dolly three or four more visits and she continued her story each time I saw her until, at last, she had related the whole of her adventures to me. Since I was able to write shorthand, I took down her narrative exactly as she related it, without a break, in her own words.
CHAPTER ONE
A young girl’s humiliating experiences, death of my father; how I made Miss Ruth Dean’s acquaintance and what came of it; helping to free the slaves.My name is Dolly Morton, I am just twenty-six years of age and I was born in Philadelphia, where my father was a clerk in a bank. I was his only child and my mother died when I was two years old, so I have no remembrance of her. My father’s salary was small, but he gave me as good an education as his means would allow, his intention being that I should gain my living as a school teacher.
He was a silent, stern, reserved man, who perhaps may have been fond of me in his way: but he never showed any outward sign of affection, and he always kept me under strict discipline.
Whenever I committed a fault, he would lay me across his knees, turn up my short petticoats, take down my drawers and spank me soundly with a broad piece of leather. I was a plump, soft, thin-skinned girl who felt pain acutely, and I used to shriek and kick up my heels and beg for mercy — which however, I never received, for he would calmly go on spanking me till my poor little bottom was as red as fire and I was hoarse with screaming.