“Ah! bless us and save us, we need have something to keep us going,” returned Miss Jenny, shrugging her shoulders.

Lizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for the person of the house than an ordinary table), and put upon it such plain fare as they were accustomed to have, and drew up a stool for herself.

“Now for supper! What are you thinking of, Jenny darling?”

“I was thinking,” she returned, coming out of a deep study, “what I would do to Him, if he should turn out a drunkard.”

“Oh, but he won’t,” said Lizzie. “You’ll take care of that, beforehand.”

“I shall try to take care of it beforehand, but he might deceive me. Oh, my dear, all those fellows with their tricks and their manners do deceive!” With the little fist in full action. “And if so, I tell you what I think I’d do. When he was asleep, I’d make a spoon red hot, and I’d have some boiling liquor bubbling in a saucepan, and I’d take it out hissing, and I’d open his mouth with the other hand — or perhaps he’d sleep with his mouth ready open — and I’d pour it down his throat, and blister it and choke him.”

“I am sure you would do no such horrible thing,” said Lizzie.

“Shouldn’t I? Well; perhaps I shouldn’t. But I should like to!”

“I am equally sure you would not.”

“Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. Only you haven’t always lived among it as I have lived — and your back isn’t bad and your legs are not queer.”

As they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her round to that prettier and better state. But, the charm was broken. The person of the house was the person of a house full of sordid shames and cares, with an upper room in which that abased figure was infecting even innocent sleep with sensual brutality and degradation. The doll’s dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew; of the world, worldly; of the earth, earthy.

Poor doll’s dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road, and asking guidance! Poor, poor little doll’s dressmaker!