I'm not a servant, I'm a prisoner. So will you be when you grow up. The day you come of age, the gates will close around you because you are a woman. If you marry, everything you own will become a property of your husband's. If you don't marry, every profession will be closed to you but one, and that one is a life of loneliness and humiliation. They lock you up, Louisa. But there's one door they can't lock. They can't imprison your mind. That's why I want you to learn to read. I want you to have you own life.
Do you know about firelight?
It's a kind of magic. Firelight makes time stand still. When you put out the lamps, and sit in the firelight's glow, there aren't any rules any more. You can do what you want, say what you want, be what you want. When the lamps are lit again, time starts again. Everything you said or did is forgotten. More than forgotten. It never happened.
Why did you give me away？
I didn't, I sold you.
How much for?
five hundred pounds.
That's larger?
It's a fortune
I 'm glad it was a lot.
