edent to the others, but less vivid in her mind
at this moment--in the next room lay awaiting burial the corpse of Mrs.
Peckover's mother-in-law, whose death six days ago had plunged mother
and daughter into profound delight, partly because they were relieved
at length from making a pretence of humanity to a bed-ridden old woman,
partly owing to the fact that the deceased had left behind her a sum of
seventy-five pounds, exclusive of moneys due from a burial-club.

'Ah!' exclaimed Miss Peckover (who was affectionately known to her
intimates as 'Clem'), as she watched Jane stagger back from the blow,
and hide her face in silent endurance of pain. 'That's just a morsel to
stay your appetite, my lady! You didn't expect me back 'ome at this
time, did you? You thought as you was goin' to have the kitchen to
yourself when mother went. Ha ha! ho ho!--These sausages is done; now
you clean that fryin'-pan; and if I can find a speck of dirt in it as
big as 'arlf a farden, I'll take you by the 'air of the 'ed an' clean
it with your face, _that's_ what I'll do I Understand? Oh, I mean what
I say, my lady! Me an' you's a-goin' to spend a evenin' together,
there's no two ways about that. Ho ho! he he!'

The frankness of Clem's brutality went far towards redeeming her
character. The exquisite satisfaction with which she viewed Jane's
present misery, the broad joviality with which she gloated over the
prospect of cruelties shortly to be inflicted, put her at once on a par
with the noble savage running wild in woods. Civilisation could bring
no charge against this young woman; it and she had no common criterion.
Who knows but this lust of hers for sanguinary domination was the
natural enough issue of the brutalising serfdom of her predecessors in
the family line of the Peckovers? A thrall suddenly endowed with
authority will assuredly make bitter work for the luckless creature in
the next degree of thraldom.

A cloth was already spread across one end of the deal table, with such
other preparations for a meal as Clem deemed adequate. The
sausages--five in number--she had emptied from the frying-pan directly
on to her plate, and with them all the black rich juice that had exuded
in the process of cooking--particularly rich, owing to its having
several times caught fire and blazed triumphantly. On sitting down and
squaring her comely frame to work, the first thing Clem did was to take
a long draught out of the beer-jug; refreshed thus, s