The spinster's mantelpiece, which is decorated
with pictorial advertisements of such highly inappropriate commodities
as baby's food and tobacco, wears an aspect which I am content to regard
as social. And the cupboard beside the fireplace, although the bottom
floor is used as a coal-cellar, suggests, with its crowded shelves of
dishes, egg-cups, plates, biscuit-boxes, and paper bags, that we are in
for a little friendly banquet, which, if not good enough for his Grace
of Canterbury, might yet have inspired him of Assisi to ask a blessing.
* * * * *
"Well, you must know," says Miss Stipp, looking at the fire, and nodding
her head as she speaks, "that I am one of ten, that I was born in
Blackfriars--born in Blackfriars, I was--and that all the boys died, and
that only me, who was born a cripple--born a cripple, I was--and my two
sisters ever grew up to be a comfort to my poor mother. What father was,
if ever he was anythin' at all, I _don't_ know; and if I ever did know I
think it was somethin' connected in some roundabout fashion, it was,
with drains. But he died early, and that was an end of _him_. My poor
mother, she was a laundress--a beautiful laundress she was, a very
beautiful laundress--and she used to do for a gentleman who was a
dissentin' minister--a dissentin' minister he was--and most particular
about his linen, and lived in the big square just by the church at the
corner, number five; and I've knowed my poor mother fret herself almost
to death, she would, if one of them little blisters ever come up on the
gentleman's shirt-fronts.
Pages:
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367