"The fam'ly where my sister lived in the country," she says, taking up her tale, "was a large family--five or six sons there was--sich nice fellers they were! But--ain't it strange?--I never see any think on 'em now though they come reggeler to London Bridge every day of their lives, they do. They was Roman Cawtholic--boys and girls alike; but, for all that, they was good-livin' people, and they was religious in their own way. And one day a week comes the priest, and that day me and my sister wasn't allowed to enter the dinin'-room all the mornin', where the breakfast things was and where the priest was what he useter call confessin' the young ladies of their sins and givin' 'em what he called absolution, summat like that, for all they'd been doin' wrong since last time. Oh my! You never knew such goings on, not in England, you didn't. But mind, they was good-livin' people. They was Cawtholics, and they give me two shillin's a week; and I was like a little servant. 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., 4d., and 2d. a week, or whatever they liked; and we done werry well with that school, and always taught religion and the catechism; and I might have been continuin' of it now if that nasty, pokin', competitionin' Board School hadn't come along, which it finished our little lot--pretty sharp it did--and left us starvin'."