e grew to be quite devoted to her
poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She had a
wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural about her.
It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't go tearing mad when I
used to see her run from her mother before the cart, and her mother catch
her by this hair, and pull her down by it, and beat her.

Such a brave child I said she was! Ah! with reason.

"Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me, with
her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet; "if I don't
cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I do cry out, it
will only be to get mother to let go and leave off." What I have seen
the little spirit bear--for me--without crying out!

Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her clothes
were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired of working at
'em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being down in the marsh
country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause of Sophy's taking bad
low fever; but however she took it, once she got it she turned away from
her mother for evermore, and nothing would persuade her to be touched by
her mother's hand. She would shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was
offered at, and would hide her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter
round the neck.

The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it, what
with one thing and what with another (and not least with railroads, which
will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and I was run dry of
money. For which reason, one night at that period of little Sophy's
being so bad, either we must have come to a dead-lock for victuals and
drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I did.

I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and indeed I
hadn't the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard with her
holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they see us, and one
chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the bidding, "Tuppence
for her!"

"Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart was a heavy
weight at the end of a broken sashline, "I give you notice that I am a
going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to give you so much
more than your money's worth that you'll only persuade yourselves to draw
your Saturday night's wages ever again arterwards by the hopes of meeting
me to lay 'em out with, which y