ipp was confirmed in St. George's Church,
on whose muddied steps Little Dorrit, Little Mother, sat in far-off days
with the big head of poor Maggie on her lap. "It was beautiful,
beautiful it was, that there Confirmation," says Miss Stipp. "The
bishop, he put his hands on my head, just there he did, put 'em on, and
I was kneelin' at his feet, and he said the words, whatever they was,
and I felt his hands pressin' on my hair; of course, I had done it werry
nice for the occasion; and I was quite a public character; yuss! and
many's the time I've been up to St. George's Church since those days and
fancied to myself that I was actin' the part again."

* * * * *

Upon the death of her mother the orphan went to live with her married
sister, whose large family was always reducing itself by the most
surprising feats in infant mortality. She helped in the house. She
earned her keep by doing little things for the dying babies, and
interviewing the undertaker and bargaining for special terms, seeing
what a good customer her sister was, when those poor babies were dead.
But that great source of crisis in the households of the poor--the
mother-in-law--came to live in the Herodian household, and Emma Jane had
such a warm time of it with this old Tartar of a woman that she
determined to "get out of it" as soon as possible.

"So I had a letter wrote," she says, getting up to scrub the
hearthstone, a feat she performs without kneeling, for the merest
forward tilt of her body brings her hands upon the floor. "Yuss, I had a
letter wrote, for I'm not much of a writer myself, I ain't--a letter
wrote to my other sister what was out in service in the country, down
Brockley way, and then I went to live with her."

"In the house where she was a servant?" I inquire.

"Yuss. That was it. I went to live with her. I was like a little
servant. Blacked the boots, peeled the pertaters, washed the dishes,
cleaned the grates, scrubbed the door-step, polished here, polished
there, helped to dish up, and they give me two shillin's a week. I was
like a little servant."

I remind her of her promise to forgo work and to be a little social,
and, after another rub or two, she wrings out the sopping cloth, lets it
drop on the hearthstone, and then, backing once more to the stool, leans
back and smiles at me, with her wet hands folded in her lap.

* * * * *

"The fam'ly where my sister lived