with pepper, and after that she constructed a little pile of salt on
the side of the plate, using her fingers to convey it from the
salt-cellar. It remained to cut a thick slice of bread--she held
the loaf pressed to her bosom whilst doing this--and to crush it
down well into the black grease beside the sausages; then Clem was
ready to begin.

For five minutes she fed heartily, showing really remarkable skill
in conveying pieces of sausage to her mouth by means of the knife
alone. Finding it necessary to breathe at last, she looked round at
Jane. The hand-maiden was on her knees near the fire, scrubbing very
hard at the pan with successive pieces of newspaper. It was a sight
to increase the gusto of Clem's meal, but of a sudden there came
into the girl's mind a yet more delightful thought. I have mentioned
that in the back-kitchen lay the body of a dead woman; it was
already encoffined, and waited for interment on the morrow, when
Mrs. Peckover would arrive with a certain female relative from St.
Albans. Now the proximity of this corpse was a ceaseless occasion of
dread and misery to Jane Snowdon; the poor child had each night to
make up a bed for herself in this front-room, dragging together a
little heap of rags when mother and daughter were gone up to their
chamber, and since the old woman's death it was much if Jane had
enjoyed one hour of unbroken sleep. She endeavoured to hide these
feelings, but Clem, with her Bed Indian scent, divined them
accurately enough. She hit upon a good idea.

'Go into the next room,' she commanded suddenly, 'and fetch the
matches off of the mantel-piece. I shall want to go upstairs
presently, to see if you've scrubbed the bed-room well.'