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The Public Scandal that in future I would have hairpins of my own.

She said: "What nonsense!"

At this I rose, and went up-stairs to bed.

I think that most people who know me know that I am a man of my word. On the following morning, before breakfast, I went into the High Street to buy a pennyworth of hairpins. The short cut from our road into the High Street is down Bloodstone Terrace.

It was in Bloodstone Terrace that I witnessed a sight which pained and surprised me very much. It disgusted me. It was a disgrace to the district, and amounted to a public scandal. St. Augustine's—which is the third house in the terrace—had taken in washing, and not only had taken in washing, but were using their front garden as a drying-ground! An offensive thing of that kind makes my blood boil.

"Eliza," I said, as I brushed my hat preparatory to leaving for the city, "I intend to write to Mr. Hamilton to-day." 169