onscious
of responsibility for it. Not too young, however, to make her case
heard--the case all living things have against the Power that creates
them without so much as asking leave. The riot she made being
interpreted by both father and uncle as protest against Mrs. Twiggins, a
midwife who made herself disagreeable--or, strictly speaking, more
disagreeable; being normally unpleasant, and apt to snap when spoke to,
however civil--it was thought desirable to call in the help of her Aunt
M'riar, who was living with her family at Ealing as a widow without
incumbrance. Dolly junior appeared to calm down under Aunt M'riar's
auspices, though every now and then her natural indignation got the
better of her self-restraint. Dave junior was disgusted with his sister
at first, but softened gradually towards her as she matured.

His father did not long survive the death of his young wife. Even an
omnibus-driver is not exempt from inflammation of the lungs, although
the complaint is not so fatal among persons exposed to all weathers as
among leaders of indoor lives. A violent double pneumonia carried off
Uncle Mo's brother, six months after he became a widower, and about
three years before the date of this story.

Whether in some other class of life a marriageable uncle and aunt--sixty
and forty respectively--would have accepted their condominium of the
household that was left, it is not for the story to discuss. Uncle Moses
refused to give up the two babies, and Aunt M'riar refused to leave
them, and--as was remarked by both--there you were! It was an _impasse_.
The only effect it had on the position was that Uncle Mo's temporariness
got a little boastful, and slighted his permanency. The latter, however,
paid absolutely no attention to the insult, and the only change that
took place in the three following years at No. 7, Sapps Court, had
nothing to do with the downstairs tenants. Some months before the first
date of the story, a variation came about in the occupancy upstairs,
Mrs. Prichard and Mrs. Burr taking the place of some parties who, if the
truth was told, were rather a riddance. The fact is merely recorded as
received; nothing further has transpired regarding these persons.

Mrs. Prichard was a very old lady who seldom showed herself outside of
her own room--so the Court testified--but who, when she did so,
impressed the downstairs tenants as of unfathomable antiquity and a
certain pictorial appearance, causing Uncle Mo