me light. Then
it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said all
together, 'Have patience, and we will come again.' Whenever they came
back, I used to know they were coming before I saw the long bright rows,
by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, 'Who is this in pain!
Who is this in pain!' And I used to cry out, 'Oh my blessed children,
it's poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make me light!'"

By degrees as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised,
the last ecstatic look returned, and she became quite beautiful again.
Having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her
face, she looked round and recalled herself.

"What poor fun you think me, don't you," she said to the visitor. "You
may well look tired of me. But it's Saturday night, and I won't
detain you."

"That is to say, Miss Wren," observed the visitor, rather weary of the
person of the house, and quite ready to profit by her hint, "you wish
me to go?"

"Well, it's Saturday night," she returned, "and my child's coming home.
And my child is a troublesome, bad child, and costs me a world of
scolding. I would rather you didn't see my child."

"A doll?" said the visitor, not understanding, and looking for an
explanation.

But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, "_Her father_,"
he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling
figure of the child's father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and
scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when
he came home in such a pitiable condition.

While they ate their supper, Lizzie tried to bring the child round again
to that prettier and better state. But the charm was broken. The dolls'
dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew, of the world, worldly; of
the earth, earthy.

Poor dolls' dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should
have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the
eternal road and asking guidance! Poor, poor little dolls' dressmaker.

One of Miss Jenny's firmest friends was an aged Jew, Mr. Riah, by name;
of venerable aspect, and a generous and noble nature. He was supposedly
the head of the firm of Pubsey and Co., at Saint-Mary-Axe, but really
only the agent of one Mr. Fledgeby, a miserly young dandy who directed
all the aged Jew's transactions, and forced him into sharp, unfair
dealings with those whom Mr. Riah himself would gladly