n any
point. But Mary Anne Perkinsop although I behaved handsomely to her and
she behaved unhandsomely to me was worth her weight in gold as overawing
lodgers without driving them away, for lodgers would be far more sparing
of their bells with Mary Anne than I ever knew them to be with Maid or
Mistress, which is a great triumph especially when accompanied with a
cast in the eye and a bag of bones, but it was the steadiness of her way
with them through her father's having failed in Pork. It was Mary Anne's
looking so respectable in her person and being so strict in her spirits
that conquered the tea-and-sugarest gentleman (for he weighed them both
in a pair of scales every morning) that I have ever had to deal with and
no lamb grew meeker, still it afterwards came round to me that Miss
Wozenham happening to pass and seeing Mary Anne take in the milk of a
milkman that made free in a rosy-faced way (I think no worse of him) with
every girl in the street but was quite frozen up like the statue at
Charing-cross by her, saw Mary Anne's value in the lodging business and
went as high as one pound per quarter more, consequently Mary Anne with
not a word betwixt us says "If you will provide yourself Mrs. Lirriper in
a month from this day I have already done the same," which hurt me and I
said so, and she then hurt me more by insinuating that her father having
failed in Pork had laid her open to it.

My dear I do assure you it's a harassing thing to know what kind of girls
to give the preference to, for if they are lively they get bell'd off
their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in
complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if
they are smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and if
they are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and
allowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be
always out of window just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in
girls the ladies don't, which is fruitful hot water for all parties, and
then there's temper though such a temper as Caroline Maxey's I hope not
often. A good-looking black-eyed girl was Caroline and a comely-made
girl to your cost when she did break out and laid about her, as took
place first and last through a new-married couple come to see London in
the first floor and the lady very high and it _was_ supposed not liking
the good looks of Caroline having none of her o