'They are not terrible to me,' she said. 'I know them--what they are and what has made them so. I can speak their language, but I must not let them know that I understand. It is the Thieves' tongue made up of Gipsy and of Tinkers' talk. They talk about me all day--even when I am in their midst. Poor wretches! They are not so bad as they look.' 'Nay, Jenny, but to see them beside you!' 'If we grow up among people, Will, and are used to them, we do not think much of their manners and their looks. When I was a child I played among them. Many a cuff have I had: many a slap for getting in their way: but many a bit of gingerbread and many an apple. You think them terrible. If they were clean and had their hair dressed they would not be terrible any longer. Oh! Will, they are not very far from the fine ladies--no--nor so very much below the best of good women, even Alice. They are women, though you flog them at Bridewell and hang them at Tyburn--they are still women. And they love--in their poor fond faithful way--the very hand that knocks them down and the very foot that kicks them. They love--Oh! the poor women--they love.' She broke off, with a sob in her voice. I marvelled at the time because I had always looked upon the creatures as something below humanity: as belonging to a tribe of savages such as Swift called the Yahoos. Afterwards, I understood; and then I marvelled more. Another time she talked about her profession as an actress. 'Acting,' she said, 'cannot be otherwise than delightful--but it takes an actor away from himself. When one has been two or three years on the stage nothing is left but the stage and the dressing-room: the company behind the scenes and the audience in front. Nothing is real. Everything that happens is but a scene in a play. When the curtain drops upon this Act, that is, when they let me go, I shall rest for five minutes while the next Act is getting ready: the play of _Clarinda_, or the _Orange Girl_, has some excellent scenes. You remember that scene when the mob wrecked the house: and the scene when the mob pelted Mr. Merridew--well, I should not be in the least surprised to meet Mr. Merridew himself walking along Holborn with one eye on a young thief in training for a shoplifter: and I might look in at the Black Jack and see my mother taking her morning dram and Doll adding up the scores upon the slate. In five minutes after the curtain has dropped what has happened is little more to me than the last scene in the play at Drury. Why, if I were put into the cart and carried out to Tyburn I should still be the heroine playing my part to a breathless house. And I believe I should enjoy that part of the performance as much as anything. You saw how I played the Virgin Martyr in Court.' 'Yet this is real enough, God knows,' I said, looking round the place.