ctive, Mary Anne?'

'Because it takes a pronoun after it in the objective case, Miss
Peecher.'

'Very good indeed,' remarked Miss Peecher, with encouragement. 'In fact,
could not be better. Don't forget to apply it, another time, Mary Anne.'
This said, Miss Peecher finished the watering of her flowers, and
went into her little official residence, and took a refresher of the
principal rivers and mountains of the world, their breadths, depths, and
heights, before settling the measurements of the body of a dress for her
own personal occupation.

Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey side of
Westminster Bridge, and crossed the bridge, and made along the Middlesex
shore towards Millbank. In this region are a certain little street
called Church Street, and a certain little blind square, called Smith
Square, in the centre of which last retreat is a very hideous church
with four towers at the four corners, generally resembling some
petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legs
in the air. They found a tree near by in a corner, and a blacksmith's
forge, and a timber yard, and a dealer's in old iron. What a rusty
portion of a boiler and a great iron wheel or so meant by lying
half-buried in the dealer's fore-court, nobody seemed to know or to want
to know. Like the Miller of questionable jollity in the song, They cared
for Nobody, no not they, and Nobody cared for them.

After making the round of this place, and noting that there was a deadly
kind of repose on it, more as though it had taken laudanum than fallen
into a natural rest, they stopped at the point where the street and the
square joined, and where there were some little quiet houses in a row.
To these Charley Hexam finally led the way, and at one of these stopped.

'This must be where my sister lives, sir. This is where she came for a
temporary lodging, soon after father's death.'

'How often have you seen her since?'

'Why, only twice, sir,' returned the boy, with his former reluctance;
'but that's as much her doing as mine.'

'How does she support herself?'

'She was always a fair needlewoman, and she keeps the stockroom of a
seaman's outfitter.'

'Does she ever work at her own lodging here?'

'Sometimes; but her regular hours and regular occupation are at their
place of business, I believe, sir. This is the number.'

The boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened with a spring
and a click. A parlour