They had three children with them, the smallest o'
them pickaback on the biggest; an' it's strange, miss--I never could
compass it, though I atten' chapel reg'lar--how it goes to yer heart I
mean, to see one human bein' lookin' arter another! But my husban', as
was natural, he bein' a householder, an' so many of his own, was shy o'
children; for children, you know, miss, 'cep' they be yer own, ain't
nice things about a house; an' them poor things wouldn't be a credit
nowheres, for they're ragged enough--an' a good deal more than enough
--only they were pretty clean, as poor children go, an' there was
nothing, as I said to him, in the top-rooms, as they could do much harm
to. The man said theirs weren't like other children, for they had been
brought up to do the thing as they were told, an' to remember that
things that belonged to other people was to be handled as sich; an',
said he, they were always too busy earnin' their bread to be up to
tricks, an' in fact were always too tired to have much spare powder to
let off; so the long an' short on it was, we took 'em in, an' they've
turned out as quiet an' well-behaved a family as you could desire; an'
if they ain't got jest the most respectable way o' earnin' their
livelihood, that may be as much their misfortin as their fault, as my
husband he said.
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