Mrs. Bowerbank, in a leisurely, roundabout way, wandered off to her sister, Mrs. Chipperfield, whom she had come into that part of the world to see, and the whole history of the dropsical tendencies of whose husband, an undertaker with a business that had been a blessing because you could always count on it, she unfolded to Miss Pynsent between the sips of a second glass. She was a high-shouldered, towering woman, and suggested squareness as well as a pervasion of the upper air, so that Amanda reflected that she must be very difficult to fit, and had a sinking at the idea of the number of pins she would take. Her sister had nine children and she herself had seven, the eldest of whom she left in charge of the others when she went to her service. She was on duty at the prison only during the day; she had to be there at seven in the morning, but she got her evenings at home, quite regular and comfortable. Miss Pynsent thought it wonderful she could talk of comfort in such a life as that, but could easily imagine she should be glad to get away at night, for at that time the place must be much more terrible. “And aren’t you frightened of them—ever?” she inquired, looking up at her visitor with her little heated face. Mrs. Bowerbank, who was very slow, considered her so long before replying that she felt herself to be, to an alarming degree, in the eye of the law; for who could be more closely connected with the administration of justice than a female turnkey, especially so big and majestic a one? “I expect they’re more frightened of me,” she declared at last; and it was an idea into which Miss Pynsent could easily enter. “And at night I suppose they rave quite awful,” the little dressmaker suggested, feeling vaguely that prisons and madhouses came very much to the same. “Well, if they do we hush ’em up,” Mrs. Bowerbank remarked rather portentously; while Miss Pynsent fidgeted to the door again, without results, to see if the child had become visible. She observed to her guest that she couldn’t call it anything but contrary that he shouldn’t turn up when he knew so well, most days in the week, when his tea was ready. To which Mrs. Bowerbank rejoined, fixing her companion again with the steady orb of justice: “And do he have his tea that way by himself, like a real little gentleman?” “Well, I try to give it to him tidy-like, at a suitable hour,” said Miss Pynsent guiltily. “And there might be some who would say that, for the matter of that, he is a real little gentleman,” she added with an effort at mitigation which, as she immediately became conscious, only involved her more deeply. “There are people silly enough to say anything. If it’s your parents that settle your station the child hasn’t much to be thankful for,” Mrs. Bowerbank went on in the manner of a woman accustomed to looking facts in the face.