Page:Jepson--Pollyooly.djvu/122

 Bank stood as a firm barrier between the Lump and the workhouse for the best part of a year; one British institution counteracted another. She moved about the world a blither creature.

It was perhaps owing to this blitheness that one afternoon some ten days later she lapsed for a few minutes from the high dignity she had prescribed for herself as fitting the housekeeper of the Honorable John Ruffin. It was a high and fine dignity; she always walked sedately; she even walked up Alsatia without the truculent swagger she had been wont to assume, when she went to visit Mrs. Brown; she shunned her old Alsatian acquaintances; she never ran nowadays save when she forgot herself.

After their dinner that afternoon she mended a rent in the Lump's frock with neatness and expedition, for not only had she passed at Muttle-Deeping school the seven standards Great Britain sets before its young, but also she had occupied a high place in a sewing class. Then they sallied forth to take the air in the gardens on the Thames Embankment.

But as they went out of the Tudor Street gate, the dulcet strains of a barrel-organ fell on their ears; and half-way up Alsatia they saw the usual