Kind,
good, religious people they was; and the beetles and the crickets in the
house was somethink beastly. Oh, I do hate they nasty stinkin' things;
_hate_ 'em I do! And they had a garden, a beautiful garden, and it was
full of flowers it was, but I don't remember the names of them, excep'
that I know it was full of flowers--all the colours you can think
of--and that garden was a god to them poor Cawtholics, it really was.
The boys worked in it before they went to the City, and the young ladies
messed about with it all day; and then they all went chipping and
choppin' in it of a evenin', and me and my sister wasn't hardly allowed
to look at the flowers, we wasn't, for it was like a god to them."
Her sister's health began to fail. The housework of the large family
became too much for her, and the brave maid-of-all-work, accompanied by
Emma Jane, was obliged to return to London. They sought the advice of
that dissenting minister whose shirt-fronts, if ever they showed a
blister, had been so frightful a terror to Emma Jane's poor mother. By
the great kindness of this good man--his wisdom is not my concern--- the
invalid maid-of-all-work and the indefatigable dwarf who had been like a
little servant, and who has already confessed to us that she is not much
of a writer herself--were established in Blackfriars as
schoolmistresses!
"We hired a little room--in Green-street, it was--me and my sister, and
we had a few little scholars--oh, yuss, and a tidy lot of good-sized
boys and girls, besides the little 'uns--and they paid us 6d.
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