d the crossin' at the Elephant and Castle, which tries my
nerves dreadful it does, and oughter be put a stop to, for it ain't safe
for nobody, let alone a cripple. Then there's the children," she cries
fiercely. "Oh, they are dreadful! You never heard sich language.
Foul-mouthed!--oh, it's awful; I never did in all my life hear sich
disgustin' language. And they tease me dreadful, they do, and call after
me, and follow me into shops, and throw muck at me, the dirty little
blasphemin' devils."

She tells me, in conclusion, of a milliner's shop where she goes for
oddments, and where the young ladies sometimes give her a bit of
trimming for her bonnet. Her last action is to drop the scrubbing-brush
into the pail of water, to reach out an arm, and grab with one of her
claws a piece of dirty black ribbon, sticking like an old book-marker
from under a pile of rubbish beside the hearth, and then to pull at the
string till presently there drops upon the floor a small and battered
black bonnet with another string trailing behind it in the heap of
rubbish.

"There!" says Miss Stipp, holding up the fusty old bonnet, "with a bit
of black velvet," she continues, studying the flat bonnet with critical
eyes, "and a nob of jet, and a orstrich feather stuck into it somewhere
about there, or there perhaps, it will last me many a long day yet, and
always look nice and fashionable when I go for my walks about London
Bridge of a evenin'."

She is still holding the bonnet when I stoop down to take my leave. The
beautiful address of the bishop who confirmed her so many years ago in
Little Dorrit's church is not, my life for it, half so urgent and
absorbing a matter for Miss Stipp as the latest fashion.

MUSIC
[Sidenote: _Samuel Johnson_]

"Upon hearing a celebrated performer go through a hard composition, and
hearing it remarked that it was very difficult, Dr. Johnson said, 'I
would it had been impossible.'"

NEATNESS IN EXCESS
[Sidenote: _Samuel Johnson_]

"I asked Mr. Johnson if he ever disputed with his wife. 'Perpetually,'
said he; 'my wife had a particular reverence for cleanliness, and
desired the praise of neatness in her dress and furniture, as many
ladies do, till they become troublesome to their best friends, slaves to
their own besoms, and only sigh for the hour of sweeping their husbands
out of the house as dirt and useless lumber. A clean floor is so
comfortable, she would say sometimes by way of twitting; till at l