"We was poorer than 'most anybody in Blackfriars, where we lived, and a terribly poor neighbourhood it were--terribly poor; and so one of my sisters got married, she did, and a wonderfully big family she had, but most of 'em died sharp, so _that_ was all right, excep' that the berryin' cost a tidy bit of money, it did. Then my other sister went out to service in Brixton. I useter go there one day a week--Toosday it was--to clean the silver and the soup tureens, and they give me a shillin', they did, I useter help sister in the kitchen--not a cook I wasn't, you must understand, but I useter help with the vegetables and the dishin'-up, and they give me a shillin'. It was a very nice house; a nice house, and no mistake about it. The lady had married a gardener--a gentleman's gardener, he was; and there was a carpet all over the dining-room floor--a nice carpet, a Brussels carpet, an ol' Brussels carpet; and she kep' a parrot--oh, a nasty, spiteful parrot, it was--I useter hate it, I did, the nasty, squawlin' beast; and it was more to her than any baby; and I useter clean the silver and the soup tureens, and do the vegetables and dish-up, Toosdays it was; and they give me a shillin'. "All by meself I useter go, there and back, and one night"--she lifts her claws and gurgles at the memory, with a slow smile creepin' gradually through all the wrinkles on her face--"Oh, didn't I give my poor mother a fright, and no mistake about it! It was one of them nasty, stinkin' cold, freezin' nights; the streets like ice, they was, and the 'bus horses couldn't get along nohow, for all they was roughed; and it was past eleven o'clock, it was--yes, past eleven o'clock, it was--before ever I got home; and there was my poor mother standing at the door of the alms-house where we was livin' in Blackfriars--my poor mother and me--and cryin' and wringin' her hands and makin' a to-do, she was, thinking as how she had lost me altogether. * * * * *