"La, Mrs. Gray!" she began breathlessly, "What do you think? There's a new one. I have brought you the paper; third column, second page, first article, 'The Church in a Mess.' I thought you'd like to see it. Well, Rachel, and how are you getting on? Mrs. James's dress don't fit her a bit, and she says she'll not give you another stitch of work: but la! you don't care--do you? Why, Mary, how yellow you look to day. I declare you're as yellow as the crocuses in the pot. Ain't she now, Jane? And so you're not married yet--are you, my girl?" she added, giving the grim apprentice a slap on the back. Jane eyed her quietly. "You'd better not do that again, Mrs. Brown," she said, with some sternness, "and as to getting married: why, s'pose you mind your own business!" Mrs. Brown threw herself back in her chair, and laughed until the tears ran down her face. When she recovered, it was to address Mrs. Gray. "La, Mrs. Gray! can't you find it?" she said. "Why, I told you, third column, second page, 'The Church in a Mess.' You can't miss. I have put a pin in it." Spite of this kind attention, Mrs. Gray had not found "The Church in a Mess." "Lawk, Mrs. Brown!" she said, impatiently, "where's the use of always raking up them sort of things! The badness of others don't make us good-- does it? It's the taxes I think of, Mrs. Brown; it's the taxes! Now, Rachel, where are you going?" "I am going to take home this work, mother." Unable to find fault with this, Mrs. Gray muttered to herself. She was not ill-natured, but fault-finding was with her an inveterate habit. "La! what a muff that girl of yours is, Mrs. Gray!" charitably observed Mrs. Brown, as Rachel left the room. For Mrs. Brown being Mrs. Gray's cousin, landlady, and neighbour, took the right to say everything she pleased. "She ain't particlerly bright," confessed Mrs. Gray, poking the fire, "but you see, Mrs. Brown--" Rachel closed the door, and heard no more. Whilst Mrs. Brown was talking, she had been tying up her parcel. She now put on her bonnet and cloak, and went out. It is sweet, after the toil of a day, to breathe fresh air, London air even though it should be. It is sweet, after the long closeness of the work-room, to walk out and feel the sense of life and liberty. A new being seemed poured into Rachel as she went on. "I wonder people do not like this street," she thought, pausing at the corner to look back on the grey, quiet line she was leaving behind. "They call it dull, and to me it is so calm and sweet." And she sighed to enter the noisy and populous world before her. She hastily crossed it, and only slackened her pace when she reached the wide streets, the mansions with gardens to them, the broad and silent squares of the west end. She stopped before a handsome house, the abode of a rich lady who occasionally employed her, because she worked cheaper than a fashionable dress-maker, and as well.