side of the hearth, separated by the breadth of this grating, were
two old ladies in a condition of feeble dignity, which was surely
the very last and lowest reduction of self-complacency to be found
in this wonderful humanity of ours. They were evidently jealous of
each other, and passed their whole time (as some people do, whose
fires are not grated) in mentally disparaging each other, and
contemptuously watching their neighbours. One of these parodies on
provincial gentlewomen was extremely talkative, and expressed a
strong desire to attend the service on Sundays, from which she
represented herself to have derived the greatest interest and
consolation when allowed that privilege. She gossiped so well, and
looked altogether so cheery and harmless, that I began to think
this a case for the Eastern magistrate, until I found that on the
last occasion of her attending chapel she had secreted a small
stick, and had caused some confusion in the responses by suddenly
producing it and belabouring the congregation.

So, these two old ladies, separated by the breadth of the grating--
otherwise they would fly at one another's caps--sat all day long,
suspecting one another, and contemplating a world of fits. For
everybody else in the room had fits, except the wards-woman; an
elderly, able-bodied pauperess, with a large upper lip, and an air
of repressing and saving her strength, as she stood with her hands
folded before her, and her eyes slowly rolling, biding her time for
catching or holding somebody. This civil personage (in whom I
regretted to identify a reduced member of my honourable friend Mrs.
Gamp's family) said, 'They has 'em continiwal, sir. They drops
without no more notice than if they was coach-horses dropped from
the moon, sir. And when one drops, another drops, and sometimes
there'll be as many as four or five on 'em at once, dear me, a