That night the broad-shouldered child, Lilly Dogger, was up later than usual. An arrear of pots and saucepans to scour, along with customary knives and forks to clean, detained her.

“Bustle, you huzzy, will ye?” cried the harsh voice of old Mildred, who was adjusting the kettle on the kitchen fire, while in the scullery the brown-eyed little girl worked away at the knife-board. A mutton-fat, fixed in a tin sconce on the wall, so as to command both the kitchen and the scullery, economically lighted each, the old woman and her drudge, at her work,

“Yes’m, please,” she said, interrogatively, for the noise of her task prevented her hearing distinctly.

“Be alive, I say. It’s gone eleven, you slut; ye should a bin in your bed an hour,” screeched Mildred, and then relapsed into her customary grumble.

“Yes, Mrs. Tarnley, please’m,” answered the little girl, resuming with improved energy.

Drowsy enough was the girl. If there had been a minute’s respite from her task, I think she would have nodded.

“Be them things rubbed up or no, or do you mean to ’a done tonight, huzzy?” cried Mrs. Tarnley, this time so near as to startle her, for she had unawares put her wrinkled head into the scullery. “Stop that for tonight, I say. Leave ’em lay, ye’ll finish in the morning.”

“Shall I take down the fire, Mrs. Tarnley, ma’am, please?” asked Lilly Dogger, after a little pause.

“No, ye shan’t. What’s that ye see on the fire; have ye eyes in your head? Don’t ye see the kettle there? How do I know but your master’ll be home tonight, and want a cup o’ tea, or—law knows what?”

Mrs. Tarnley looked put about, as she phrased it, and in one of those special tempers which accompanied that state. So Lilly Dogger, eyeing her with wide open eyes, made her a frightened little courtesy.

“Why don’t ye get up betimes in the morning, huzzy, and then ye needn’t be mopin’ about half the night? All the colour’s washed out o’ your big, ugly, platter face, wi’ your laziness—as white as a turnip. When I was a girl, if I left my work over so, I’d ’a the broomstick across my back, I promise ye, and bread and water next day too good for my victuals; but now ye thinks ye can do as ye like, and all’s changed! An’ every upstart brat is as good as her betters. But don’t ye think ye’ll come it over me, lass, don’t ye. Look up there at the clock, will ye, or do ye want me to pull ye up by the ear—ten minutes past eleven—wi’ your dawdling, ye limb!”

The old woman whisked about, and putting her hand on a cupboard door, she turned round again before opening it, and said—

“Come on, will ye, and take your bread if you want it, and don’t ye stand gaping there, ye slut, as if I had nothing to do but attend upon you, with your impittence, I shouldn’t give ye that!”

She thumped a great lump of bread down on the kitchen table by which the girl was now standing.

“Not a bit, if I did right, and yell not be sittin’ up to eat that, mind ye; ye’ll take it wi’ ye to yer bed, young lady, and tumble in without delay, d’ye mind! For if I find ye out o’ bed when I go in to see all’s right, I’ll just gi’e ye that bowl o’ cold water over yer head. In wi’ ye, an’ get ye twixt the blankets before two minutes—get along.”

The girl knew that Mrs. Tarnley could strike as well as “jaw,” and seldom threatened in vain, so with eyes still fixed upon her, she took up her fragment of loaf, with a hasty courtesy, of which the old woman took no notice, and vanished frightened through a door that opened off the kitchen.

The old woman holding the candle over her head, soon peeped in as she had threatened.

Lilly Dogger lay close affecting to be asleep, though that feat in the time was impossible, and was afraid that the thump, thump of her heart, for she greatly feared Mrs. Tarnley, might be audible to that severe listener.

Out she went, however, without anything more, to the great relief of the girl.

Lilly Dogger lay awake, for fear is vigilant, and Mrs. Tarnley’s temper she knew was capricious as well as violent.

Through the door she heard the incessant croak of the old woman’s voice, as she grumbled and scolded in soliloquy, poking here and there about the kitchen. The girl lay awake, listening vaguely in the dark, and watching the one bri............