| REMARKS OF CHARLES TURRILL, ESQ., M. P. BY JUSTIN HUNTLY McCARTHY. | [205] |
EVE THE SEVENTH.
| OLD MEMORIES BY A LONELY CLERGYMAN BY CLEMENT SCOTT. | [237] |
SEVEN CHRISTMAS EVES.
EVE THE FIRST.
THE TESTIMONY OF MRS. MARY CHEEVERS REGARDING THEM TWO.
By CLO GRAVES.
Never having had much book-learning in my time, having entered into that state of life into which it pleased them above to call me, more than fifty years before the piano began to be taught in Board-schools, with part singing on the cistern of the tonic sofas, as to hear Cheevers’s sister Eliza’s daughter Grace’s eldest Emmeline sing “Come buy my Coloured ’Errin’,” and recite “Not a Drum was ’Eard” and the “Fall of Smackerib,” makes you feel oysters creepin’ up and down the small of your back.
Being a plain person, accustomed to call a spade a spade, and so hope do not give offence—I, the undersigned Mary Cheevers, washer-woman, being called on by some as I have reason, the dear Lord knows, to love and reverence, write my plain story in my own plain way, and with the best of intentions, though a difficulty with the spelling—Eliza’s Grace’s Emmeline not being always handy—and a cramped hand from soaking in the tub for many, many labouring years.