poor things are brought up to."

There was no resisting the twinkle in Aunt Judy's eye when she came
to this point, though it shone through an old pair of Nurse's
spectacles; and the little ones clapped their hands, and declared it
was every bit as good as a Cook story, ONLY A GREAT DEAL BETTER!
That twinkle had quite brought Aunt Judy back to them again, in spite
of her cook's attire, and No. 6 cried out:-

"Oh! don't stop, Aunt Judy! Do go on, Cooky dear! do tell some more!
Did you always live in that place, please?"

"There now!" exclaimed Aunt Judy, throwing herself back in the chair,
"isn't that a regular young lady's question, out and out? Who but a
young lady, with no more sense in her head than a pin, would have
thought of asking such a thing? Why, miss, is there a joint in the
world that can bear basting for ever? No, no! a time comes when it
must be taken down, if any good's to be left in it; and so at the end
of three years my basting-time was over, and the time for taking down
was come.

"'Cook,' says I to myself, 'you must give in. If you go on with
those cherubs (that was their company name, you know) much longer,
there won't be a bit of you left!' And, sure enough, that very
morning, dears, they'd come down upon me with a fresh grievance, and
I couldn't stand it, I really couldn't! The sweeps had been by four
o'clock to the kitchen chimney, and I'd been up and toiling every
minute since, and hadn't had time to eat my breakfast, when in they
burst--the young ladies, not the sweeps, dears, I mean:- and there
they broke out at once--I hadn't fed their sea-gulls before