The Crossing-Sweeper who had been a Servant-Maid.
She is to be found any day between eight in the morning and seven in the evening, sweeping away in a convulsive, jerky sort of manner, close to —— square, near the Foundling. She may be known by her pinched-up straw bonnet, with a broad, faded, almost colourless ribbon. She has weak eyes, and wears over them a brownish shade. Her face is tied up, because of a gathering which she has on her head. She wears a small, old plaid cloak, a clean checked apron, and a tidy printed gown.
THE CROSSING-SWEEPER THAT HAS BEEN A MAID-SERVANT.
[From a Photograph.]
She is rather shy at first, but willing and obliging enough withal; and she lives down Little —— Yard, in Great —— street. The “yard” that is made like a mousetrap—small at the entrance, but amazingly large inside, and dilapidated though extensive.
Here are stables and a couple of blind alleys, nameless, or bearing the same name as the yard itself, and wherein are huddled more people than one could count in a quarter of an hour, and more children than one likes to remember,—dirty children, listlessly trailing an old tin baking-dish, or a worn-out shoe, tied to a piece of string; sullen children, who turn away in a fit of sleepy anger if spoken to; screaming children, setting all the parents in the “yard” at defiance; and quiet children, who are arranging banquets of dirt in the reeking gutters.
The “yard” is devoted principally to costermongers.
The crossing-sweeper lives in the top-room of a two-storied house, in the very depth of the blind alley at the end of the yard. She has not even a room to herself, but pays one shilling a-week for the privilege of sleeping with a woman who gets her living by selling tapes in the streets.