consequently I put poor Sophy on to other work
and forbid her answering the door or answering
a bell on any account but she was so unfortunately
willing that nothing would stop her flying
up the kitchen stairs whenever a bell was
heard to tingle. I put it to her " Oh Sophy Sophy
for goodness goodness sake where does it come
from?" To which that poor unlucky willing
mortal bursting out crying to see me so vexed
replied "I took a deal of black into me ma'am
when I was a small child being much neglected
and I think it must be, that it works out," so
it continuing to work out of that poor thing
and not having another fault to find with her I
says Sophy " what do you seriously think of my
helping you away to New South Wales where
it might not be noticed?" Nor did I ever
repent the money which was well spent, for she
married the ship's cook on the voyage (himself
a Mulotter) and did well and lived happy, and
so far as ever I heard it was not noticed in a
new state of society to her dying day.

In what way Miss Wozenham lower down on
the other side of the way reconciled it to her
feelings as a lady (which she is not) to entice
Mary Anne Perkinsop from my service is best
known to herself, I do not know and I do not
wish to know how opinions are formed at
Wozenham's on any point. But Mary Anne
Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her
and she behaved unhandsomely to me was worth
her weight in gold as overawing lodgers without
driving them away, for lodgers would be far
more sparing of their bells with Mary Anne
than I ever knew them be with Maid or
Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when
accompanied with a cast in the eye and a bag of
bones, but it was the steadiness of her way with
them through her father's having failed in Pork.
It was Mary Anne's looking so respectable in
her person and being so strict in her spirits that
conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for
he weighed them both in a pair of scales every
morning) that I have ever had to deal with and
no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came
round to me that Miss Wozenham happening
to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the  milk
of a milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way
(I think no worse  of him) with every girl in the
street but was quite frozen up like the statue
at Charing Cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value
in the lodging business and went as high as one
pound per quarter more, consequently Mary
Anne with not a word betwixt us says "If you
will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in a month
from this day I have already done the same,"
which hurt me and I said so, and she then hurt
me more by insinuating that her father having
failed in Pork had laid her open to it.

My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing
to know what kind of girls to give the
preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd
off their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer
from it yourself in complaints and if they are
sparkling-eyed they get made love to and if they
are smart in their persons they try on your
Lodger's bonnets and if they are musical I defy
you to keep them away from bands and organs,
and allowing for any difference you like in their
heads their heads will be always out of window
just the same. And then what the gentlemen
like in girls the ladies don't, which is fruitful
hot water for all parties, and then there's temper
though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I
hope not often. A good-looking black-eyed girl
was Caroline and a comely-made girl to your cost
when she did break out and laid about her, as
took place first and last through a new-married
couple come to see London in the first floor and
the lady very high and it was supposed not liking
the good looks of Caroline having none of her
own to spare, but anyhow she did try Caroline
though that was no excuse. So one afternoon
Caroline comes down into the kitchen flushed
and flashing, and she says to me "Mrs. Lirriper
that woman in the first has aggravated me past
bearing," I says " Caroline keep your temper,"
Caroline says with a curdling laugh" Keep my
temper? You're right Mrs. Lirriper, so I will.
Capital D her!"  bursts out Caroline (you might
have struck me into the centre of the earth with
a feather when she said it) "I'll give her a touch
of the temper that I keep!" Caroline downs with
her hair my dear, screeches and rushes
upstairs, I following as fast as my trembling legs
could bear me, but before I got into the room the
dinner cloth and pink and white service all
dragged off upon the floor with a crash and the
new married couple on their backs in the fire-
grate, him with the shovel and tongs and a dish
of cucumber across him and a mercy it was
summer-time. "Caroline" I says "be calm,"
but she catches off my cap and tears it in her
teeth as she passes me, then pounces on the
new married lady makes her a bundle of ribbons
takes her by the two ears and knocks the back
of her head upon the carpet Murder screaming
all the time Policemen running down the street
and Wozenham's windows (judge of my feelings
when I came to know it) thrown up and
Miss Wozenham calling out from the balcony
with crocodile's tears "It's Mrs. Lirriper been
overcharging somebody to madness—she'll be
murdered—I always thought so—Pleeseman
save her!" My dear four of them and Caroline
behind the chiffoniere attacking with the poker
and when disarmed prize fighting with her
double fists, and down and up and up and down
and dreadful! But I couldn't bear to see the poor
young creature roughly handled and her
hair torn when they got the better of her, and
I says "Gentlemen Policemen pray remember
that her sex is the sex of your mothers and
sisters and your sweethearts, and God bless
them and you!" And there she was sitting down on
the ground handcuffed, taking breath against the
skirting-board and them cool with their coats in
strips, and all she says was "Mrs. Lirriper I am
sorry as ever I touched you, for you're a kind
motherly old thing," and it made me think that
I had often wished I had been a mother indeed
and how would my heart have felt if I had been
the mother of that girl! Well you know it
turned out at the Police-office that she had done