lumber-cupboards, where black-beetles and rats
alone hold holiday; and even more ineffably
miserable than this part of the premises is the
area itself, with often one crippled, dusty,
mottled-leafed Aucuba in an old red oil-jar,
fighting for existence against soot, drought, and
general misery and destitution.

Probably not far unlike our rough picture
was the kitchen of No. 68, Chancery-lane, on
Monday, the 20th of March, 1815. No. 68
was then occupied by Mr. Robert Turner, a law-
stationer, his apprentices and family. The shop
was, of course, the usual congeries of blanched
parchment, red tape, green ferreting, ink, quills,
blank law forms, penknives, almanacks, and other
apparatus of law, and sometimes of justice.
Eliza Fenning, a young cook, was bustling
about the kitchen, getting a pastry-board ready
to make some dumplings. The girl had been
in the service of Mr. Turner only about seven
weeks. Eliza was a good-natured, amiable girl;
but three weeks before, her mistress had
reproved her for romping with one of the
apprentices, named Gadsden; but as the apprentice
was clearly in the wrong, and had been rude to
her, the mistress had withdrawn the warning
she had threatened, and thought no more of the
matter.

This unjust complaint had, however, preyed
on the girl's mind, and she had been rather
less respectful and somewhat sullen since the
occurrence, and had told her fellow-servant,
Sarah Peer, the housemaid, that she should
never like the family any more; with several
young men about, the mistress had been right
in being particular; but the girl was sensitive,
and thought that blame had fallen unjustly on
her.

On the Monday morning early, there came a
ring at the Chancery-lane door, and Eliza's
fellow-servant, Sarah Peer, ran up to answer
the bell. It proved to be Joseph Penson, a man
from Mr. Edmonds's, the brewer, in Gray's
Inn-lane. He had brought some yeast that
Eliza had asked for some days before, to make
some dumplings. The yeast had been taken
out of the stilliards where the casks lay, and
from the place from whence the bakers usually
had it. Sarah emptied it into a white basin,
thanked the man, chatted for one moment,
flirted for another, then ran racing downstairs
with the yeast, and gave it to Eliza. The
new cook instantly went up to Mrs. Turner in
the dining-room, and reported triumphantly that
the brewer had at last brought some yeast. The
girl had repeatedly teased Mrs. Turner to let her
make some dumplings, and she now again
announced herself as a capital hand at making
them. She seemed particularly anxious to show
her skill, and the small vanity was in the eyes of
the mistress rather commendable than otherwise.
Mrs. Turner, however, informed Eliza
that she did not on such occasions trouble the
brewer's man, but always had the dough from
the baker's, because it was thought the best;
but having the yeast, she said, Eliza could now
achieve her triumph, and make some dumplings
next day; the poor girl retired to her own
dominions delighted.

The next day (Tuesday), Mrs. Turner
descends into the family vault to arrange the
dinner and set the house in trim for the day.
She orders the yeast dumplings, but tells Eliza
to first make a beefsteak pie for the apprentices'
dinner. Eliza is to go out and get the steaks
in Brooks' Market, and afterwards carry the pie
to the baker's, but when the dumpling dough
is once made she is not to leave it till
finished. Eliza is pleased and docile; so it
shall be; she takes down the flour-dredger,
the clean pastry-board, the rolling-pin, the flour-
basin, and begins with a hearty good will, singing
as she works. That is half-past eleven.
At twelve, the pie ascends the area steps on
its way to the baker's. The apprentices dine at
two, the family at three. On Eliza's return,
Mrs. Turner, a watchful housewife, now
thoroughly roused on the question of dumplings,
dives down again into the dim kitchen, and
orders the dumpling dough to be mixed with
milk and water. She then says:

"I suppose, Eliza, there is no occasion for
me to stop?"

The girl replies: "Oh no, ma'am; I know very
well how to do it."

In half an hour, Mrs. Turner dives again,
finds Eliza serenely triumphant, and the dough
set in a pan before the fire, on the bright steel
fender, to rise. Several times afterwards, Mrs.
Turner returns to the charge, lifts the cloth
from the pan, and eyes the dough, that,
however, obstinately refuses to rise. It still lies
in an unusual way, and in an odd shape.
Before twelve, the six dumplings are divided
ready to put into the pan; the other servant,
Sarah Peer, who is going out for the day, has
been up-stairs ever since a quarter-past eleven,
mending a counterpane, and no one but Eliza and
Mrs. Turner has seen the dough. Mrs. Turner
merely remarks in a disappointed way to Eliza
that the dough does not rise, and the young
cook confidently replies:

"It will rise before I want it."

At two o'clock the beefsteak pie was sent
for; it returned savoury and hot, and Gadsden
came rattling down, hungry as a wolf, after
copying deeds all the morning. Sarah Peer,
the housemaid, was going out for the day to
see her sister at Hackney, and the conversation
was about her going. Sarah was not on very
good terms with the cook. Their tempers
clashed, Eliza considering Sarah as sly and
artful, and Sarah having many causes of
complaint (as she thought), especially a recent case
of some apron of hers being taken by Eliza for a
duster. There might, too, be a little rivalry for
Gadsden. The girls were now, however, friends
again, and the old difference had been quite
forgotten, at least by Eliza.

Gadsden handed the dishes, and drank the
girls' healths in small beer, with the gallantry
of the young law-stationer in good society.
Presently, as it got towards three, Eliza asked
the housemaid to run out and get a halfpenny-worth