dear to me. I am
going into the Lodgings gentlemen as a business and if I prosper every
farthing that my late husband owed shall be paid for the sake of the love
I bore him, by this right hand." It took a long time to do but it was
done, and the silver cream-jug which is between ourselves and the bed and
the mattress in my room up-stairs (or it would have found legs so sure as
ever the Furnished bill was up) being presented by the gentlemen engraved
"To Mrs. Lirriper a mark of grateful respect for her honourable conduct"
gave me a turn which was too much for my feelings, till Mr. Betley which
at that time had the parlours and loved his joke says "Cheer up Mrs.
Lirriper, you should feel as if it was only your christening and they
were your godfathers and godmothers which did promise for you." And it
brought me round, and I don't mind confessing to you my dear that I then
put a sandwich and a drop of sherry in a little basket and went down to
Hatfield church-yard outside the coach and kissed my hand and laid it
with a kind of proud and swelling love on my husband's grave, though
bless you it had taken me so long to clear his name that my wedding-ring
was worn quite fine and smooth when I laid it on the green green waving
grass.

I am an old woman now and my good looks are gone but that's me my dear
over the plate-warmer and considered like in the times when you used to
pay two guineas on ivory and took your chance pretty much how you came
out, which made you very careful how you left it about afterwards because
people were turned so red and uncomfortable by mostly guessing it was
somebody else quite different, and there was once a certain person that
had put his money in a hop business that came in one morning to pay his
rent and his respects being the second floor that would have taken it
down from its hook and put it in his breast-pocket--you understand my
dear--for the L, he says of the original--only there was no mellowness in
_his_ voice and I wouldn't let him, but his opinion of it you may gather
from his saying to it "Speak to me Emma!" which was far from a rational
observation no doubt but still a tribute to its being a likeness, and I
think myself it _was_ like me when I was young and wore that sort of
stays.

But it was about the Lodgings that I was intending to hold forth and
certainly I ought to know something of the business having been in it so
long, for it was early in the second year of my married lif