(By the law of England the mothers of illegitimate children are often in a better position than their married sisters.)
An unusual sense of expectancy pervaded the young women's ward; Mrs. Cleaver had gone down "to appear before the Committee," and though the ways of committees are slow, and pauper-time worthless, it was felt that her ordeal was being unduly protracted.
"She's having a dose, she is," said a young woman walking up and down, futilely patting the back of a shrieking infant. "I 'ate appearing afore them committees; last time I was down I called the lady 'Sir' and the gentleman 'Mum,' and my 'eart went pitter-patter in my breast so that you might have knocked me down with a feather. 'Ere she is—well, my dear, and you do look bad——"
"Them committees allus turn me dead sick, and, being a stout woman, my boots feel too tight for me, and I goes into a perspiration, and the great drops go rolling off my forehead. Well, 'e's kept 'is word, and got the law and right of England behind 'im."
What reporters call a "sensation" made itself felt through the ward; the inmates gathered closer round Mrs. Cleaver, and screaming infants were rocked and patted and soothed with much vigour and little result.
"Well," said Mrs. Cleaver, sinking on to the end of a bed, "I went afore the Committee and I says, 'I want to take my discharge,' I says; I applied last week to the Master, but mine got at 'im first, and Master up and says—
"'No, Mrs. Cleaver, you can't go,' he says; 'your 'usband can't spare you,' he says, 'wants you to keep 'im company in 'ere,' he says.
"'Is that true, Master?' says the little man wot sits lost in the big chair.
"'That is so, sir,' says Master, and then 'e outs with a big book and reads something very learned and brain-confusing that I did not rightly understand, as to how a 'usband may detain his wife in the workhouse by his marital authority.
"'Good 'eavens!' says the little lady Guardian 'er wot's dressed so shabby. 'Is that the law of England?'