are not his brother and sister?' said Mrs Boffin. 'Oh, dear no,
ma'am. Those are Minders.'

'Minders?' the Secretary repeated.

'Left to be Minded, sir. I keep a Minding-School. I can take only three,
on account of the Mangle. But I love children, and Four-pence a week is
Four-pence. Come here, Toddles and Poddles.'

Toddles was the pet-name of the boy; Poddles of the girl. At their
little unsteady pace, they came across the floor, hand-in-hand, as if
they were traversing an extremely difficult road intersected by brooks,
and, when they had had their heads patted by Mrs Betty Higden, made
lunges at the orphan, dramatically representing an attempt to bear him,
crowing, into captivity and slavery. All the three children enjoyed this
to a delightful extent, and the sympathetic Sloppy again laughed long
and loud. When it was discreet to stop the play, Betty Higden said
'Go to your seats Toddles and Poddles,' and they returned hand-in-hand
across country, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen by late rains.

'And Master--or Mister--Sloppy?' said the Secretary, in doubt whether he
was man, boy, or what.

'A love-child,' returned Betty Higden, dropping her voice; 'parents
never known; found in the street. He was brought up in the--' with a
shiver of repugnance, '--the House.'

'The Poor-house?' said the Secretary.

Mrs Higden set that resolute old face of hers, and darkly nodded yes.

'You dislike the mention of it.'

'Dislike the mention of it?' answered the old woman. 'Kill me sooner
than take me there. Throw this pretty child under cart-horses feet and
a loaded waggon, sooner than take him there. Come to us and find us all
a-dying, and set a light to us all where we lie and let us all blaze
away with the house into a heap of cinders sooner than move a corpse of
us there!'

A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of hard
working, and hard living, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable
Boards! What is it that we call it in our grandiose speeches? British
independence, rather perverted? Is that, or something like it, the ring
of the cant?

'Do I never read in the newspapers,' said the dame, fondling the
child--'God help me and the like of me!--how the worn-out people that
do come down to that, get driven from post to pillar and pillar to post,
a-purpose to tire them out! Do I never read how they are put off, put
off, put off--how they are grudged, grudged, grudged, the shelter, or
the doc