, and then you
would just go to work to show this great, glorious London what a woman
can do to bring it to her little feet.'

"I know grandfather is saying, 'Gough bless me, girl! you didn't try it,
though?' Well, yes, I did--just for fun, you know, and out of the spirit
of mischief that's born in every daughter of Eve. Do you remember that
Manx cat that wouldn't live in the house, notwithstanding all the bribes
and corruption of Aunt Rachel's new milk and softened bread, but went off
by the backyard wall to join the tribe of pariah pussies that snatch a
living how they may? Well, I felt like Rumpy for once, having three
'goolden sovereigns' in my pocket and a mind superior to fate.

"It was glorious fun altogether, and the world is so amusing that I can't
imagine why anybody should go out of it before he must. I hadn't gone a
dozen yards in my new character as Dick Whittington _fille_ before a
coachman as fat as an elephant was shouting, 'Where d'ye think yer going
ter?' and I was nearly run down in the Broad Sanctuary by a carriage
containing two brazen women in sealskin jackets, with faces so thick with
powder and paint that you would have thought they had been quarrelling on
washing day and thrown the blue bag at each other's eyes. I recognised
one of them as a former nurse who had left the hospital in disgrace, but
happily she didn't see me, for the little hard lump at my heart was
turning as bitter as gall at that moment, so I made some philosophical
observations to myself and passed on.

"Oh, my gracious, these London landladies! They must be female Shylocks,
for the pound of flesh is the badge of all their tribe. The first one I
boarded asked two guineas for two rooms, and lights and fires extra. 'By
the month?' says I. 'Yus, by the month if ye like,' says she. 'Two
guineas a month?' says I. Marry come up! I was out of that house in a
twinkling.

"Then I looked out a group of humbler thoroughfares, not far from the
Houses of Parliament, where nearly every house had a card fixed up on a
little green blind. At last I found a place that would do--for my week,
only my week, you know. Ten shillings and no extras. 'I'll take them,'
said I with a lofty air, and thereupon the landlady, a grim person, with
the suspicion of a mustache, began to cross-examine me. Was I married?
Oh, dear, no! Then what was my business? Fool that I was, I said I had
none, being full of my Dick Whittingtonism, and not choosing to remember