ever I saw him before.

"So you're going to be fool enough to pay for her funeral, are you?"
were his first words to me.

I was too weary and heart-sick to answer; I only tried to get by him to
my own door.

"If you can pay for burying her," he went on, putting himself in front
of me, "you can pay her lawful debts. She owes me three weeks' rent.
Suppose you raise the money for that next, and hand it over to me? I'm
not joking, I can promise you. I mean to have my rent; and, if somebody
don't pay it, I'll have her body seized and sent to the workhouse!"

Between terror and disgust, I thought I should have dropped to the floor
at his feet. But I determined not to let him see how he had horrified
me, if I could possibly control myself. So I mustered resolution enough
to answer that I did not believe the law gave him any such wicked power
over the dead.

"I'll teach you what the law is!" he broke in; "you'll raise money to
bury her like a born lady, when she's died in my debt, will you? And you
think I'll let my rights be trampled upon like that, do you? See if I
do! I'll give you till to-night to think about it. If I don't have the
three weeks she owes before to-morrow, dead or alive, she shall go to
the workhouse!"

This time I managed to push by him, and get to my own room, and lock
the door in his face. As soon as I was alone I fell into a breathless,
suffocating fit of crying that seemed to be shaking me to pieces. But
there was no good and no help in tears; I did my best to calm myself
after a little while, and tried to think who I should run to for help
and protection.

The doctor was the first friend I thought of; but I knew he was always
out seeing his patients of an afternoon. The beadle was the next person
who came into my head. He had the look of being a very dignified,
unapproachable kind of man when he came about the inquest; but he talked
to me a little then, and said I was a good girl, and seemed, I really
thought, to pity me. So to him I determined to apply in my great danger
and distress.

Most fortunately, I found him at home. When I told him of the landlord's
infamous threats, and of the misery I was suffering in consequence of
them, he rose up with a stamp of his foot, and sent for his gold-laced
cocked hat that he wears on Sundays, and his long cane with the ivory
top to it.

"I'll give it to him," said the beadle. "Come along with me, my dear.
I think I told you you were a good girl at th