utes to say it in. Bustle away, my dears," she said to the
children.

After a little clamouring they all went off except Juliet and the
baby.

"Don't you go, Juliet," said Mrs. Rowles; "I want to speak to you
presently, before I go home."

"Then, Juliet," said her mother, "do you think you could carry baby
safely downstairs, and sit on the door-step with him until Miss Sutton
goes away?"

"I shall be sure to bump his head against the wall; I always do," was
Juliet's sulky reply.

"Oh, you must try not to do so," put in Miss Sutton.

"And you might put his head on the side away from the wall," said Mrs.
Rowles cheerfully.

"I might," returned Juliet in a doubtful voice; "but that would be on
the wrong arm."

"The wrong arm will be the right arm this time;" and Mrs. Rowles laid
the baby on Juliet's bony right arm, and both children arrived safely
on the door-step within three minutes.

"Now," said Miss Sutton, "who may this good woman be?"

"My brother's wife from Littlebourne, miss; and she brought us a real
good dinner, and we are all truly thankful. Amen."

"You come to a poor part of London," said Miss Sutton; "and I am not
going to say but that the poverty is deserved, part of it, at all
events. There was Thomas Mitchell, aged twenty-three, getting good
wages as a journeyman printer. There was Mary Rowles, parlour-maid at
the West-end, costing her mistress at the rate of fifty pounds a year,
aged twenty-one. Because they could keep themselves comfortably they
thought they could keep ten children on Thomas's wages. So they got
married, and found they could not do it, not even when the ten was
reduced to eight. Because a gentleman can keep himself comfortably on
a hundred and fifty pounds a year, does he try to keep a wife and ten
children on it?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Rowles, thinking that she ought to say
something, and yet not knowing what to say.

"Oh, no, no," murmured Mary Mitchell.

"Of course not," pursued Miss Sutton. "He says, 'What I have is only
enough to keep myself, so I had better not marry.' Do you know why I
have not married?"

"No, miss," replied Mrs. Mitchell, getting to work again on the
mantle.

"Because the man I liked had not enough to keep a wife and family; he
looked before he leaped. He never leaped at all; he never even
proposed to me point-blank, but it came round to me through a friend.
But you working-people, you never look, and you always leap, and when
you