fret and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if
you was fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys."

"I have only been to the churchyard," said I, from my stool, crying
and rubbing myself.

"Churchyard!" repeated my sister. "If it warn't for me you'd have
been to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you
up by hand?"

"You did," said I.

"And why did I do it, I should like to know?" exclaimed my sister.

I whimpered, "I don't know."

"I don't!" said my sister. "I'd never do it again! I know that. I
may truly say I've never had this apron of mine off, since born you
were. It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery)
without being your mother."

My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately
at the fire. For, the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed
leg, the mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful
pledge I was under to commit a larceny on those sheltering
premises, rose before me in the avenging coals.

"Hah!" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. "Churchyard,
indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two." One of us,
by-the-bye, had not said it at all. "You'll drive me to the