I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr. Skimpole towards my guardian and as passing the usual bounds of his childish innocence.

“Bounds, my dear?” returned Mr. Bucket.  “Bounds?  Now, Miss Summerson, I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you.  Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it if they can.  Whenever a person proclaims to you ‘In worldly matters I’m a child,’ you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have got that person’s number, and it’s Number One.  Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a company, but I’m a practical one, and that’s my experience.  So’s this rule.  Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything.  I never knew it fail.  No more will you.  Nor no one.  With which caution to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business.”

I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face.  The whole household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries.  No one, however, had been there.  It could not be doubted that this was the truth.

“Then, Miss Summerson,” said my companion, “we can’t be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found.  Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you’ll be so good as to make ’em.  The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way.”

We set off again immediately.  On arriving at the cottage, we found it shut up and apparently deserted, but one of the neighbours who knew me and who came out when I was trying to make some one hear informed me that the two women and their husbands now lived together in another house, made of loose rough bricks, which stood on the margin of the piece of ground where the kilns were and where the long rows of bricks were drying.  We lost no time in repairing to this place, which was within a few hundred yards; and as the door stood ajar, I pushed it open.

There were only three of them sitting at breakfast, the child lying asleep on a bed in the corner.  It was Jenny, the mother of the dead child, who was absent.  The other woman rose on seeing me; and the men, though they were, as usual, sulky and silent, each gave me a morose nod of recognition.  A look passed between them when Mr. Bucket followed me in, and I was surprised to see that the woman evidently knew him.

I had asked leave to enter of course.  Liz (the only name by which I knew her) rose to give me her own chair, but I sat down on a stool near the fire, and Mr. Bucket took a corner of the bedstead.  Now that I had to speak and was among people with whom I was not familiar, I became conscious of being hurried and giddy.  It was very difficult to begin, and I could not help bursting into tears.