day of your life," said she. She was always talking about my
eyes. She had seen me several times, but had not dared to accost me she
said. I told her she always might.

I took her to what had become my favorite baudy house. It was a hot
night, and we fucked on the sofa. She had become flabby, and said she
had ill health, but I could glean nothing from her about her career,
excepting that for some years she had not been gay. We stripped naked,
and had just finished fucking her on the sofa when I felt something
running over my legs, bum and back over my shoulder, on to hers. It was
instantaneous. Then I saw a mouse which had run over us, and went fast
up the wall into some red curtains where it was lost,--it made her
shudder, and me too. That is one of the odd events by which I shall
always recollect the last time I had Brighton Bessie. "You won't see me
again I dare say," said she in a plaintive tone, and a tear in her
eye as we parted. I said I dare say I should. "No you won't,--good bye
dear." With a sigh the poor woman left me, and I never saw her again.

It was whilst I was frequenting Bessie, and occasionally other doxies
that the following adventure occurred.

I was frequently now at my mother's house, my brother was away, and both
my sisters married. I used to stop with her for days together, finding
that a relief from home misery, and also agreeable company to her, who
was now so much alone. I also at times stopped with one of my sisters
whose husband I liked; the other lived some distance from London.

CHAPTER VIII.

Washerwomen.--Matilda and Esther.--A peep over a wall.--
Eaves dropping.--A girl's wants.--Shaking a tooleywag.--A
promenade by a barrow.--Disclosures.--A snatch and a
scuffle.--An assignation.

I went to see my mother one day in Summer, and after luncheon walked
to the end of the garden often mentioned. At one side of it was a
road which gave access to a gentleman's house, and on the other to my
mother's. There the carriage-road stopped, and a foot-path began. At the
junction was a mews wide enough for a cart, which ran at the end of our
garden and those adjoining. Our entrance to it had been disused, _we_
having one in the side-wall opening on to the road, and the neighbours
rarely used their back-entrances. The mews was grass-grown. On the
opposite side to our garden-walls was the wall of very large grounds. A
gate not locked, formed of open bars was at the end of