speaking likeness!' cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.

'It was considered so once,' said Mrs Todgers, warming herself in a
gentlemanly manner at the fire; 'but I hardly thought you would have
known it, my loves.'

They would have known it anywhere. If they could have met with it in
the street, or seen it in a shop window, they would have cried 'Good
gracious! Mrs Todgers!'

'Presiding over an establishment like this, makes sad havoc with the
features, my dear Miss Pecksniffs,' said Mrs Todgers. 'The gravy alone,
is enough to add twenty years to one's age, I do assure you.'

'Lor'!' cried the two Miss Pecksniffs.

'The anxiety of that one item, my dears,' said Mrs Todgers, 'keeps the
mind continually upon the stretch. There is no such passion in human
nature, as the passion for gravy among commercial gentlemen. It's
nothing to say a joint won't yield--a whole animal wouldn't yield--the
amount of gravy they expect each day at dinner. And what I have
undergone in consequence,' cried Mrs Todgers, raising her eyes and
shaking her head, 'no one would believe!'

'Just like Mr Pinch, Merry!' said Charity. 'We have always noticed it in
him, you remember?'

'Yes, my dear,' giggled Merry, 'but we have never given it him, you
know.'

'You, my dears, having to deal with your pa's pupils who can't help
themselves, are able to take your own way,' said Mrs Todgers; 'but in
a commercial establishment, where any gentleman may say any Saturday
evening, "Mrs Todgers, this day week we part, in consequence of the
cheese," it is not so easy to preserve a pleasant understanding. Your pa
was kind enough,' added the good lady, 'to invite me to take a ride with
you to-day; and I think he mentioned that you were going to call upon
Miss Pinch. Any relation to the gentleman you were speaking of just now,
Miss Pecksniff?'

'For goodness sake, Mrs Todgers,' interposed the lively Merry, 'don't
call him a gentleman. My dear Cherry, Pinch a gentleman! The idea!'

'What a wicked girl you are!' cried Mrs Todgers, embracing her with
great affection. 'You are quite a quiz, I do declare! My dear Miss
Pecksniff, what a happiness your sister's spirits must be to your pa and
self!'

'He's the most hideous, goggle-eyed creature, Mrs Todgers, in
existence,' resumed Merry: 'quite an ogre. The ugliest, awkwardest
frightfullest being, you can imagine. This is his sister, so I leave you
to suppose what SHE is. I shall be obliged to laugh outright, I know