ing Mavis's stay, the
house was so full that three would sleep in one room, each of whom
would go downstairs to the parlour, which was the front room on the
ground floor, for the dreaded ordeal, to be taken upstairs as soon as
possible after the baby was born. Mavis, who had always looked on the
birth of a child as something sacred and demanding the utmost privacy,
was inexpressibly shocked at the wholesale fashion in which children
were brought into the world at Mrs Gowler's.

There was much that was casual, and, therefore, callous about the
circumstances attending the ceaseless succession of births; they might
as well have been kittens, their mothers cats, so Mavis thought, owing
to the mean indignities attaching to the initial stages of their
motherhood. It did not occur to her how house-room, furniture, doctors,
nurses, and servants supply dignity to a commonplace process of nature.
It seemed to Mavis that Mrs Gowler lived in an atmosphere of horror and
pain. At the same time, the girl had the sense to realise that Mrs
Gowler had her use in life, inasmuch as she provided a refuge for the
women, which salved their pride (no small matter) by enabling them to
forego entering the workhouse infirmary, which otherwise could not have
been avoided.

Oscar inspired Mavis with an inexpressible loathing. For the life of
her, she could not understand why such terrible caricatures of humanity
were permitted to live, and were not put out of existence at birth. The
common trouble of Mrs Gowler's lodgers seemed to establish a feeling of
fellowship amongst them during the time that they were there. Mavis was
not a little surprised to receive one day a request from a woman, to
the effect that she should give this person's baby a "feed," the mother
not being so happily endowed in this respect as Mavis. The latter's
indignant refusal gave rise to much comment in the place.

The "permanent" was soon on her feet, an advantage which she declared
was owing to her previous fecundity. Mavis could see how the
"permanent" despised her because she was merely nursing her first-born.

"'As Piggy 'ad a go at your box yet?" she one day asked Mavis, who
replied:

"I'm too careful. I always keep it locked."

"Locks ain't nothin' to her. If you've any letters from a gentleman, as
would compromise him, burn them."

"Why?"

"If she gets hold of 'em, she'll make money on 'em."

"Nonsense! She wouldn't dare."

"Wouldn't she! Piggy 'ud do anyt