"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