This is the girl who is the bane and curse of the workroom crowded with juvenile stitchers or pasters, or workers in flowers or beads. Her constant assumption of lightheartedness draws them towards her, her lively stories are a relief from the monotonous drudgery they are engaged on. Old and bold in petty wickedness, and with audacious pretensions to acquaintance with vice of a graver sort, she entertains them with stories of “sprees” and “larks” she and her friends have indulged in. She has been to “plays” and to “dancing rooms,” and to the best of her ability and means she demonstrates the latest fashion in her own attire, and wears her draggletail flinders of lace and ribbon in such an easy and old-fashionable manner, poor little wretch, as to impress one with the conviction that she must have been used to this sort of thing since the time of her shortcoating; which must have been many, many years ago. She has money to spend; not much, but sufficient for the purchase of luxuries, the consumption of which inflict cruel pangs on the hungry-eyed beholders. She is a person whose intimacy is worth cultivating, and they do cultivate it, with what result need not be here described. At fifteen the London factory-bred girl in her vulgar way has the worldly knowledge of the ordinary female of eighteen or twenty. She has her “young man,” and accompanies him of evenings to “sing-songs” and raffles, and on high days and holidays to Hampton by the shilling van, or to Greenwich by the sixpenny boat. At sixteen she wearies of the frivolities of sweethearting, and the young man being agreeable the pair embark in housekeeping, and “settle down.” Perhaps they marry, and be it distinctly understood, whatever has been said to the contrary, the estate of matrimony amongst her class is not lightly esteemed. On the contrary, it is a contract in which so much pride is taken that the certificate attesting its due performance is not uncommonly displayed on the wall of the living-room as a choice print or picture might be; with this singular and unaccountable distinction that when a _clock_ is reckoned with the other household furniture, the marriage certificate is almost invariably hung under it. It was Mr. Catlin of the Cow Cross Mission who first drew my attention to this strange observance, and in our many explorations into the horrible courts and alleys in the vicinity of his mission-house he frequently pointed out instances of this strange custom; but even he, who is as learned in the habits and customs of all manner of outcasts of civilisation as any man living, was unable to explain its origin. When questioned on the subject the common answer was, “They say that it’s lucky.”