“It seems a little thing to cry about,” said poor Miss Jellyby, apologetically, “but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new circulars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so, that that alone makes my head ache till I can’t see out of my eyes. And look at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as he is!”

Peepy, happily unconscious of the defects in his appearance, sat on the carpet behind one of the legs of the piano, looking calmly out of his den at us, while he ate his cake.

“I have sent him to the other end of the room,” observed Miss Jellyby, drawing her chair nearer ours, “because I don’t want him to hear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was going to say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bank-rupt before long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There’ll he nobody but Ma to thank for it.”

We said we hoped Mr Jellyby’s affairs were not in so bad a state as that.

“It’s of no use hoping, though it’s very kind of you,” returned Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. “Pa told me, only yesterday morning (and dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn’t weather the storm. I should be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send into our house any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with it, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don’t care about anything, I should like to make out how Pa is to weather the storm. I declare if I was Pa, I’d run away.”

“My dear!” said I, smiling. “Your papa, no doubt, considers his family.”

“O yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson,” replied Miss Jellyby; “but what comfort is his family to him? His family is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles down-stairs, confusion, and wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week’s-end to week’s-end, is like one great washing-day — only nothing’s washed!”

Miss Jellyby tapped her foot upon the floor, and wiped her eyes.

“I am sure I pity Pa to that degree,” she said, “and am so angry with Ma, that I can’t find words to express myself! However, I am not going to bear it, I am determined. I won’t be a slave all my life, and I won’t submit to be proposed to by Mr Quale. A pretty thing, indeed, to marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn’t had enough of that!” said poor Miss Jellyby.

I must confess that I could not help feeling rather angry with Mrs Jellyby myself; seeing and hearing this neglected girl, and knowing how much of bitterly satirical truth there was in what she said.

“If it wasn’t that we had been intimate when you stopped at our house,” pursued Miss Jellyby, “I should have been ashamed to come here to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But, as it is, I made up my mind to call: especially as I am not likely to see you again, the next time you come to town.”

She said this with such great significance that Ada and I glanced at one another, foreseeing something more.

“No!” said Miss Jellyby, shaking her head. “Not at all likely! I know I may trust you two. I am sure you won’t betray me. I am engaged.”

“Without their knowledge at home?” said I.

“Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson,” she returned, justifying herself in a fretful but not angry manner, “how can it be otherwise? You know what Ma is — and I needn’t make poor Pa more miserable by telling him.”