to see the girl Jenny coming, and--No; let me tell the truth, though the
whole club reads: I was waiting for her.

"How is William's wife to-day?" I asked.

"She told me to nod three times," the little slattern replied; "but she
looked like nothink but a dead one till she got the brandy.

"Hush, child!" I said, shocked. "You don't know how the dead look."

"Bless yer," she answered, "don't I just! Why, I've helped to lay 'em
out. I'm going on seven."

"Is William good to his wife?"

"Course he is. Ain't she his missis?"

"Why should that make him good to her?" I asked, cynically, out of my
knowledge of the poor. But the girl, precocious in many ways, had never
had any opportunities of studying the lower classes in the newspapers,
fiction, and club talk. She shut one eye, and, looking up wonderingly,
said:

"Ain't you green--just!"

"When does William reach home at night?"

"'Tain't night; it's morning. When I wakes up at half dark and half
light, and hears a door shutting, I know as it's either father going off
to his work or Mr. Hicking come home from his."