The young gentleman could not put his arm out
far to do it, but his spoken expressions were
very beautiful though of a wandering class.
And I do not know that I ever had a much
pleasanter meal than the breakfast we took
together after we had all dozed, when Miss Buffle
made tea very sweetly in quite the Roman style
as depicted formerly at Covent Garden Theatre
and when the whole family was most agreeable,
as they have ever proved since that night when
the Major stood at the foot of the Fire-Escape
and claimed them as they came down—the young
gentleman headforemost, which accounts. And
though I do not say that we should be less liable
to think ill of one another if strictly limited to
blankets, still I do say that we might most of us
come to a better understanding if we kept one
another less at a distance.

Why there's Wozenham's lower down on the
other side of the street. I had a feeling of much
soreness several years respecting what I must
still ever call Miss Wozenham's systematic
underbidding and the likeness of the house in
Bradshaw having far too many windows and a
most umbrageous and outrageous Oak which
never yet was seen in Norfolk-street nor yet a
carriage and four at Wozenham's door, which it
would have been far more to Bradshaw's credit
to have drawn a cab. This frame of mind
continued bitter down to the very afternoon in
January last when one of my girls, Sally
Rairyganoo which I still suspect of Irish extraction
though family represented Cambridge, else why
abscond with a bricklayer of the Limerick
persuasion and be married in pattens not waiting
till his black eye was decently got round with all
the company fourteen in number and one horse
fighting outside on the roof of the vehicle—I
repeat my dear my ill-regulated state of mind
towards Miss Wozenham continued down to the
very afternoon of January last past when Sally
Rairyganoo came banging (I can use no milder
expression) into my room with a jump which may
be Cambridge and may not, and said "Hurroo
Missis! Miss Wozenham's sold up!" My dear
when I had it thrown in my face and
conscience that the girl Sally had reason to think
I could be glad of the ruin of a fellow-creeter, I
burst into tears and dropped back in my chair
and I says "I am ashamed of myself!"

Well! I tried to settle to my tea but I
could not do it what with thinking of Miss
Wozenham and her distresses. It was a wretched
night and I went up to a front window and
looked over at Wozenham's and as well as I
could make it out down the street in the fog it
was the dismalest of the dismal and not a light
to be seen. So at last I says to myself "This
will not do," and I puts on my oldest bonnet
and shawl not wishing Miss Wozenham to be
reminded of my best at such a time, and lo and
behold you I goes over to Wozenham's and knocks.
"Miss Wozenham at home?" I says turning my
head when I heard the door go. And then I saw
it was Miss Wozenham herself who had opened
it and sadly worn she was poor thing and her
eyes all swelled and swelled with crying. "Miss
Wozenham" I says "it is several years since
there was a little unpleasantness betwixt us on
the subject of my grandson's cap being down
your Airy. I have overlooked it and I hope you
have done the same." "Yes Mrs. Lirriper" she
says in a surprise "I have." "Then my dear"
I says "I should be glad to come in and speak
a word to you." Upon my calling her my dear
Miss Wozenham breaks out a crying most pitiful,
and a not unfeeling elderly person that
might have been better shaved in a nightcap
with a hat over it offering a polite apology for
the mumps having worked themselves into
his constitution, and also for sending home to
his wife on the bellows which was in his hand
as a writing-desk, looks out of the back parlour
and says "The lady wants a word of comfort"
and goes in again. So I was able to say quite
natural "Wants a word of comfort does she sir?
Then please the pigs she shall have it!" And Miss
Wozenham and me we go into the front room with
a wretched light that seemed to have been crying
too and was sputtering out, and I says "Now
my dear, tell me all," and she wrings her hands
and says "Oh Mrs. Lirriper that man is in
possession here, and I have not a friend in the
world who is able to help me with a shilling."

It doesn't signify a bit what a talkative old
body like me said to Miss Wozenham when she
said that, and so I'll tell you instead my dear that
I'd have given thirty shillings to have taken her
over to tea, only I durstn't on account of the
Major. Not you see but what I knew I could
draw the Major out like thread and wind him
round my linger on most subjects and perhaps
even on that if I was to set myself to it, but him
and me had so often belied Miss Wozenham to one
another that I was shamefaced, and I knew she
had offended his pride and never mine, and likewise
I felt timid that that Rairyganoo girl might
make things awkward. So I says "My dear
if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my
muddle of a head I should better understand
your affairs." And we had the tea and the
affairs too and after all it was but forty pound,
and——There! she's as industrious and straight
a creeter as ever lived and has paid back half of
it already, and where's the use of saying more,
particularly when it ain't the point? For the
point is that when she was a kissing my hands
and holding them in hers and kissing them again
and blessing blessing blessing, I cheered up at
last and I says " Why what a waddling old
goose I have been my dear to take you for
something so very different!" "Ah but I too"
says she "how have I mistaken you!" "Come
for goodness' sake tell me" I says "what you.
thought of me?" "Oh" says she "I thought
you had no feeling for such a hard hand-to-
mouth life as mine, and were rolling in
affluence." I says shaking my sides (and very
glad to do it for I had been a choking quite long
enough) "Only look at my figure my dear and
give me your opinion whether if I was in
affluence I should be likely to roll in it!" That
did it! We got as merry as grigs (whatever
they are, if you happen to know my dear—I
don't) and I went home to my blessed home as
happy and as thankful as could be. But before