“’Tisn’t exactly the kind o’ subject a body ’ud think o’ namin’ to the pore man,” said the policeman, who was a person of refined feelings. “To say ‘Good-day to ye, an’ why don’t ye get a glass eye?’ ’ud seem a bit strange. Well, neighbours, I must be movin’ on. ’Tis a pity for the pore chap; but we must feel grateful for him as Providence didn’t see fit to try en no worse.”
On the next Sunday afternoon, after Lizzie had cleared away the dinner things, and fed the chickens, and scrubbed the faces of her little brothers and sisters previous to their departure for Sunday School, she donned her white straw hat, with its big red rose nodding triumphantly from a commanding position just over the centre of her forehead, pinned a posy of carnations and jasmine and southern-wood in the bosom of her blue dress, drew a new pair of cotton gloves over her plump hands, and sallied forth up the street to call on Susan.
She found Mrs. Adlam with her Sunday gown pinned back over a striped petticoat, her sleeves rolled up as high as Sunday sleeves would go, and a further protection against possible accidents in the shape of a large-bibbed apron shrouding the remainder of her Sabbath glories, hard at work washing up.
“Good-day, Mrs. Adlam. I jest called round to see how Susan mid be.”
“Good-day, Lizzie. Susan’s very bad, thank ye. She’s layin’ on her bed upstairs. Step up if you like.”
Lizzie stepped up, and found her friend reclining outside her patchwork quilt, absorbed in the perusal of a “penny dreadful” of the most thrilling type. Lizzie approached the bed, clumping sturdily with her well-polished best boots.
“Bain’t ye agoin’ to see pore Tom?” she inquired, without wasting time on preliminaries.
Susan looked up, startled: she had just got to that point in the narrative when the heroine, drawing herself up to her full height, informed the villain that she would be sooner clasped by a serpent than permit herself to be degraded by his embrace.
“What? No, I’m not going to see Tom Locke. My nerves is much too upset. Ye did give me a jump comin’ in that way, Lizzie.”
“He’ll be waiting up there for you to spaik to en.”