in the country," she says, taking up
her tale, "was a large family--five or six sons there was--sich nice
fellers they were! But--ain't it strange?--I never see any think on 'em
now though they come reggeler to London Bridge every day of their lives,
they do. They was Roman Cawtholic--boys and girls alike; but, for all
that, they was good-livin' people, and they was religious in their own
way. And one day a week comes the priest, and that day me and my sister
wasn't allowed to enter the dinin'-room all the mornin', where the
breakfast things was and where the priest was what he useter call
confessin' the young ladies of their sins and givin' 'em what he called
absolution, summat like that, for all they'd been doin' wrong since last
time. Oh my! You never knew such goings on, not in England, you didn't.
But mind, they was good-livin' people. They was Cawtholics, and they
give me two shillin's a week; and I was like a little servant. Kind,
good, religious people they was; and the beetles and the crickets in the
house was somethink beastly. Oh, I do hate they nasty stinkin' things;
_hate_ 'em I do! And they had a garden, a beautiful garden, and it was
full of flowers it was, but I don't remember the names of them, excep'
that I know it was full of flowers--all the colours you can think
of--and that garden was a god to them poor Cawtholics, it really was.
The boys worked in it before they went to the City, and the young ladies
messed about with it all day; and then they all went chipping and
choppin' in it of a evenin', and me and my sister wasn't hardly allowed
to look at the flowers, we wasn't, for it was like a god to them."

Her sister's health began to fail. The housework of the large family
became too much for her, and the brave maid-of-all-work, accompanied by
Emma Jane, was obliged to return to London. They sought the advice of
that dissenting minister whose shirt-fronts, if ever they showed a
blister, had been so frightful a terror to Emma Jane's poor mother. By
the great kindness of this good man--his wisdom is not my concern--- the
invalid maid-of-all-work and the indefatigable dwarf who had been like a
little servant, and who has already confessed to us that she is not much
of a writer herself--were established in Blackfriars as
schoolmistresses!

"We hired a little room--in Green-street, it was--me and my sister, and
we had a few little scholars--oh, yuss, and a tidy lot of good-sized
boys and girls, besides t