“Nonsense! my good man,” said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes,—“nonsense!” “I tell you,” said the man, clenching his hands, and stamping furiously on the floor,—“I tell you I won’t have her put into the ground. She couldn’t rest there. The worms would worry—not eat her,—she is so worn away.” The undertaker offered no reply to this raving, but producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body. “Ah!” said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the feet of the dead woman; “kneel down, kneel down—kneel round her every one of you, and mark my words. I say she was starved to death. I never knew how bad she was till the fever came upon her, and then her bones were starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor candle; she died in the dark—in the dark. She couldn’t even see her children’s faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged for her in the streets, and they sent me to prison. When I came back, she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it,—they starved her!”—He twined his hands in his hair, and with a loud scream rolled grovelling upon the floor, his eyes fixed, and the foam gushing from his lips. The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence, and having unloosened the man’s cravat, who still remained extended on the ground, tottered towards the undertaker. “She was my daughter,” said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly than even the presence of death itself.—“Lord, Lord!—well, it _is_ strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there so cold and stiff! Lord, Lord!—to think of it;—it’s as good as a play—as good as a play!” As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, the undertaker turned to go away. “Stop, stop!” said the old woman in a loud whisper. “Will she be buried to-morrow—or next day—or to-night? I laid her out, and I must walk, you know. Send me a large cloak—a good warm one, for it is bitter cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never mind: send some bread—only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall we have some bread, dear?” she said eagerly, catching at the undertaker’s coat, as he once more moved towards the door. “Yes, yes,” said the undertaker, “of course; anything, everything.” He disengaged himself from the old woman’s grasp, and, dragging Oliver after him, hurried away.