a bit of boiled meat—­I forgit whether it was beef or mutton—­mutton, I think it was, but anyway boiled meat; and she eat a beautiful dinner, my poor mother did—­boiled meat, greens, and pertaters; and she eat a nice tea—­well, nothin’ partickler in the way of a tea, but a comfortable tea; and when I came home, ‘Oh Emma Jane,’ she says, ’I wish I hadn’t never let you go to church this day; for this here,’ she says, ’is my very last day on earth,’ she says, ‘and I’m goin’,’ she says, ’to your father in heaven, to take care of him, and I shall have to leave you all alone,’ she says, ‘to look after yourself; and I’m most afeard,’ my poor mother said, ‘what’ll become of you,’ she says; ‘and don’t forgit,’ she says, ’to say your prayers, and go reggeler to the Communion, and always be good and obedient, and don’t git doin’ no vile sin, and please God we’ll all meet in heaven,’ she says, ‘and be more happy,’ she says, ‘nor what we have ever been here in Blackfriars.’  And it was August Bank Holiday, the first August Bank Holiday that ever was; and it was a beautiful day, lovely weather it was, and my poor mother had a fit, and never was quite the same; and she died.”

Miss Stipp fetches a sigh, and shakes her head at the fire.  She has been living in the past, watching with the mind’s eye her poor mother fade slowly into eternity on that beautiful August day—­the little almshouse bedroom flooded, let us hope, with golden light, for all it was in Blackfriars.  She comes to herself with a little jerk, turns her head slowly round to us, and smiles one of her poor, pathetic, half-entreating smiles which make her seem like another Maggie.

And, strange to relate, Miss Stipp was confirmed in St. George’s Church, on whose muddied steps Little Dorrit, Little Mother, sat in far-off days with the big head of poor Maggie on her lap.  “It was beautiful, beautiful it was, that there Confirmation,” says Miss Stipp.  “The bishop, he put his hands on my head, just there he did, put ’em on, and I was kneelin’ at his feet, and he said the words, whatever they was, and I felt his hands pressin’ on my hair; of course, I had done it werry nice for the occasion; and I was quite a public character; yuss! and many’s the time I’ve been up to St. George’s Church since those days and fancied to myself that I was actin’ the part again.”

* * * * *

Upon the death of her mother the orphan went to live with her married sister, whose large family was always reducing itself by the most surprising feats in infant mortality.  She helped in the house.  She earned her keep by doing little things for the dying babies, and interviewing the undertaker and bargaining for special terms, seeing what a good customer her sister was, when those poor babies were dead.  But that great source of crisis in the households of the poor—­the mother-in-law—­came to live in the Herodian household, and Emma Jane had such a warm time of it with this old Tartar of a woman that she determined to “get out of it” as soon as possible.