_Tickle._ I know that; but isn’t that little gal, with her bit o’ wretched flannin, in her miserable bit o’ basket, with the midnight wind singing about her, at last picked up by letter Q, No. 45, policeman, and carried to the workhouse--isn’t that little gal, with the taste of its mother’s milk not yet out of its mouth, a happier soul than the poor little wretch, born in a Spanish palace, wrapt in velvet, and fed with a golden spoon? Now, take the two babbies. Here’s Betsy of Bermondsey, we’ll say, and Isabella o’ Spain. Betsy was taken up in a wicker basket, at the door of a very respectable tanner, a man as had served as churchwarden a dozen times, and not being owned by nobody, was packed off to the workhouse. She’s called Betsy, after one of the misses as does her the first compliment she ever had in life, by consentin’ to do her that honour. Well, Betsy grows up a strong, flourishing workhouse thing, a bit of parish duckweed, and does credit to her keeper. She is thumped and bumped, but between whiles somehow learns to write and read and keep accounts, as far as two and two make half-a-dozen. Well, at ten years old she’s sent out as parish ’prentice, to look after the five children of Mrs Chip, the bonnet-builder, as has too much to do in her own bus’ness to attend to her own family. And she’s the maid-of-all-work, without the wages, up early and abed late; for as Mr Chip is a first-rate bagatelle-player, he doesn’t sometimes come home till two, and Mrs Chip will have the kittle bilin’ at six. Howsumever, Betsy gets on in life, as a football gets on by all sorts o’ kicks and knocks, and at last she’s out of her ’prenticeship, and sets up housemaid on her own account. She’s a independent young ’oman, with eight pounds a year besides tea and sugar, and nobody knows how many caps, and how many yards o’ cherry-coloured riband in her deal box. _Mrs Nutts._ What nonsense you talk, Mr Tickle! No woman has so many yards of riband of one colour. It only shows what a little you know of the human ’art. _Nutts._ My dear Mrs Nutts, talking about the human heart, is the pie made? _Mrs Nutts._ Mr Nutts, just attend to your beards, and leave the pies to me. _Nutts._ (_Aside to =Slowgoe=, who points_.) A woman of very strong mind. Go on, Mr Tickle. You left the gal with the caps and the riband. _Tickle._ Well, Betsy Bermondsey has all sorts of sweethearts; and the _Morning Post_ never troubles what head it has about the matter. Whether she marries the butcher, the baker, the milkman, or the policeman (as has a partic’lar weakness o’ the stomach for roast duck and inions), not one of the young Englanders in the _Post_, or any other paper, cares the vally of its own leaders. _Mrs Nutts._ What’s leaders made of, Mr Tickle?