aid I. 'Where is she buried?'

'Well, I'm sure!' said the woman in a mincing, sarcastic voice. 'How
werry unperlite you is all at wonst! how werry rude you speaks to
such a werry 'spectable party as I am! You seem to forgit who I am.
Ain't I the goddess as likes to 'ave 'er little joke, an' likes to
wet both eyes, and as plays sich larks with her flummeringeroes and
drumming-dairies an' ring-tailed monkeys an' men?'

When I saw the creature whip up the quilt from the mattress, and,
holding it over her head like a veil, leer hideously in imitation of
Cyril's caricature, a shudder went again through my frame--a strange
kind of dementia came upon me; my soul again seemed to leave my
body--seemed to be lifted through the air and beyond the stars,
crying, in agony, 'Shall there be evil in a city, and the Lord hath
not done it?' Yet all the while, though my soul seemed fleeing
through infinite space, where a pitiless universe was waltzing madly
round a ball of cruel fire--all the while I was acutely conscious of
looking down upon the dreadful dream-world below, looking down into a
frightful garret where a dialogue between two dream-figures was going
on--a dialogue between Wilderspin and the woman, each word of which
struck upon my ears like a sharp-edged flint, though it seemed
millions of miles away.

* * * * *

'What made you trick me like this? Where is the money I gave you for
the funeral?'

'That's werry true, about that money, an' where is it? The orkerdest
question about money allus is--"Where is it?" The money for that
funeral I 'ad, I won't deny that. The orkard question ain't that:
it's "Where is it?" But you see, arter I left your studero I sets on
that pore gal's bed a-cryin' fit to bust; then I goes out into
Clement's Alley, and I calls on Mrs. Mix--that's a werry dear friend
of mine, the mother o' seven child'n as are allus a-settin' on my
doorstep, an' she comes out of Yorkshire you must know, an' she's bin
a streaker in her day (for she was well off wonst was Mrs. Mix afore
she 'ad them seven dirty-nosed child'n as sets on her neighbours'
doorsteps)--an' she sez, sez she, "My pore Meg" (meanin' me), "I've
bin the mother o' fourteen beautiful clean-nosed child'n, an' I've
streaked an' buried seven on 'em, so I ought to know somethink about
corpuses, an' I tell you this corpse o' your darter's must be
streaked an' buried at wonst, for she died in a swownd. An' there's
nothink like the