seated on the floor, pondering, in the foreground
of the afflicted. There was nothing repellant,
either in her face or head. Many, apparently
worse, varieties of epilepsy and hysteria were
about her, but she was said to be the worst
there. When I had spoken to her a little, she
still sat with her face turned up, pondering, and
a gleam of the mid-day sun shone in upon her.

— Whether this young woman, and the rest of
these so sorely troubled, as they sit or lie pondering
in their confused dull way, ever get
mental glimpses among the motes in the sunlight,
of healthy people and healthy things?
Whether this young woman, brooding like this
in the summer season, ever thinks that somewhere
there are trees and flowers, even mountains
and the great sea? Whether, not to go so
far, this young woman ever has any dim revelation
of that young woman— that young woman
who is not here and never will come here, who is
courted, and caressed, and loved, and has a husband,
and bears children, and lives in a home, and
who never knows what it is to have this lashing
and tearing coming upon her? And whether this
young woman, God help her, gives herself up then,
and drops like a coach-horse from the moon?

I hardly knew whether the voices of infant
children, penetrating into so hopeless a place,
made a sound that was pleasant or painful to
me. It was something to be reminded that the
weary world was not all weary, and was ever renewing
itself; but, this young woman was a
child not long ago, and a child not long hence
might be such as she. Howbeit, the active
step and eye of the vigilant matron conducted
me past the two provincial gentlewomen (whose
dignity was ruffled by the children), and into
the adjacent nursery.

There were many babies here, and more than
one handsome young mother. There were ugly
young mothers also, and sullen young mothers,
and callous young mothers. But, the cables had
not appropriated to themselves any bad expression
yet, and might have been, for anything
that appeared to the contrary in their soft faces,
Princes Imperial, and Princesses Royal. I had
the pleasure of giving a poetical commission to
the baker's man to make a cake with all despatch
and toss it into the oven for one red-headed
young pauper and myself, and felt much the
better for it. Without that refreshment, I
doubt if I should have been in a condition for
"the Refractories," towards whom my quick
little matron— for whose adaptation to her office
I had by this time conceived a genuine respect
— drew me next, and marshalled me the way that
I was going.

The Refractories were picking oakum, in a
small room giving on a yard. They sat in line
on a form, with their backs to a window; before
them, a table, and their work. The oldest Refractory
was, say twenty; youngest Refractory,
say sixteen. I have never yet ascertained, in
the course of my uncommercial travels, why a
Refractory habit should affect the tonsils and
uvula; but, I have always observed that Refractories
of both sexes and every grade, between
a Ragged School and the Old Bailey, have
one voice, in which the tonsils and uvula gain a
diseased ascendancy.

"Five pound indeed! I hain't a going
fur to pick five pound," said the Chief of the
Refractories, keeping time to herself with, her
head and chin. "More than enough to pick
what we picks now, in sitch a place as this, and
on wot we gets here!"

(This was in acknowledgment of a delicate intimation
that the amount of work was likely to
be increased. It certainly was not heavy then,
for one Refractory had already done her day's
task— it was barely two o'clock— and was sitting
behind it, with a head exactly matching it.)

"A pretty Ouse this is, matron, ain't it?"
said Refractory Two, " where a pleeseman's
called in, if a gal says a word!"

"And wen you're sent to prison for nothink
or less!" said the Chief, tugging at her oakum,
as if it were the matron's hair. " But any place
is better than this; that's one thing, and be
thankful!"

A laugh of Refractories led by Oakum Head
with folded arms— who originated nothing, but
who was in command of the skirmishers outside
the conversation.

"If any place is better than this," said my
brisk guide, in the calmest manner, "it is a pity
you left a good place when you had one."

"Ho, no, I didn't, matron," returned the
Chief, with another pull at her oakum, and a
very expressive look at the enemy's forehead.
"Don't say that, matron, 'cos it's lies!"

Oakum Head brought up the skirmishers
again, skirmished, and retired.

"And I warn't a going," exclaimed Refractory
Two, " though I was in one place for as
long as four year — I warn't a going fur to stop
in a place that warn't fit for me— there! And
where the fam'ly warn't 'spectable characters—
there! And where I fort'nately or hunfort'nately
found that the people warn't what they pretended
to make theirselves out to be— there!
And where it wasn't their faults, by chalks, if I
warn't made bad and ruinated— Hah!"

During this speech, Oakum Head had again
made a diversion with the skirmishers, and had
again withdrawn.

The Uncommercial Traveller ventured to remark
that he supposed Chief Refractory and
Number One, to be the two young women who
had been taken before the magistrate?

"Yes!" said the Chief, " we har! and the
wonder is, that a pleeseman an't 'ad in now, and
we took off agen. You can't open your lips
here, without a pleeseman."

Number Two laughed (very uvularly), and
the skirmishers followed suit.

"I'm sure I'd be thankful," protested the
Chief, looking sideways at the Uncommercial,
"if I could be got into a place, or got abroad.
I'm sick and tired of this precious Ouse, I am,
with reason."

So would be, and so was, Number Two. So
would be, and so was, Oakum Head. So would
be, and so were, Skirmishers.