"Tell her that I want her." "She's washing the pavement, mum." "Washing the pavement!" "Yes, mum." "What possessed her to wash the pavement on a day like this?" "It's the right day, mum. It's Saturday." "Saturday! Don't she know that the water will freeze almost as soon as it touches the ground? Go and tell her to come in this minute, and not throw another drop on the pavement." Nancy withdrew, and I kept on speaking to myself-- "I never saw such creatures. No consideration in them! Washing the pavement on a morning like this! Little do they care who falls on the ice; or who has a broken arm, or a broken leg." Just as I had said this, I heard a crash, and an exclamation without, and hurrying to the window looked forth. Biddy's work was done, and well done, for the pavement was one sheet of ice, as hard and smooth as glass, and as slippery as oil. Prostrate thereon was a grocer's boy, and just beyond the curb stone, in the gutter, lay the fragments of a jug of molasses. Stepping back quickly to where the bell rope hung against the wall, I gave it a most determined jerk. Scarcely had I done this, ere the door of the adjoining room, which was used as a nursery, opened, and Biddy appeared therein. "Why, Biddy!" I exclaimed, "what possessed you to throw water on the pavement this morning?" "Faix! And how was I to get it clane, mim, widout wather?" coolly returned Biddy. "Clean!" "Yes, mim, clane." "There was no crying necessity to have it clean to-day. Didn't you see--" "It's Sathurday, mim," interrupted Biddy, in a voice that showed the argument in her mind to be unanswerable. "We always wash the pavement on Sathurday." "But it doesn't do to wash the pavement," I returned, now trying to put a little reason into her head, "when it is so cold that water will freeze as soon as it touches the ground. The bricks become as slippery as glass, and people can't walk on them without falling." "Och! And what hev we till do wid the paple. Lot 'em look 'till their steps." "But, Biddy, that won't do. People don't expect to find pavements like glass; and they slip, often, while unaware of danger. Just at this moment a poor lad fell, and broke his jug all to pieces." "Did he! And less the pity for him. Why did'nt he walk along like an orderly, dacent body? Why didn't he look 'till his steps?" "Biddy," said I, seeing that it was useless to hold an argument with her,--"Do you go this minute and throw ashes all over the pavement." "Ashes on the clane pavement! Mrs. Smith!" "Yes, Biddy; and do it at once. There! Somebody else has fallen." I sprung to the window in time to see a woman on the pavement, and the contents of her basket of marketing scattered all around her. "Go this minute and throw ashes over the pavement!" I called to Biddy in a voice of command. The girl left the room with evident reluctance. The idea of scattering ashes over her clean pavement, was, to her, no very pleasant one.