last got into the bedroom, sat down upon it, and wiped his bald head with his handkerchief. He then announced abruptly that he would take the room for two years, whereupon, handing a ten-pound note to the astonished Mr. Swiveller, he began to make ready to retire, as if it were night instead of day, and Mr. Swiveller walked downstairs into the office again, filled with wonderment concerning both the strange new lodger and the small servant who had appeared to answer the bell.

After that day, one circumstance troubled Mr. Swiveller's mind very much, and that was, that the small servant always remained somewhere in the bowels of the earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface unless a bell rang, when she would answer it, and immediately disappear again. She never went out, or came into the office, or had a clean face, or took off the coarse apron, or looked out of any of the windows, or stood at the street door for a breath of air, or had any rest or enjoyment whatever. Nobody ever came to see her, nobody spoke of her, nobody cared about her.

"Now," said Dick, one day, walking up and down with his hands in his pockets; "I'd give something--if I had it--to know how they use that child, and where they keep her. I should like to know how they use her!"

At that moment he caught a glimpse of Miss Brass flitting down the kitchen stairs. "And, by Jove!" thought Dick, "She's going to feed the small servant. Now or never!"

First peeping over the handrail, he groped his way down, and arrived at the kitchen door immediately after Miss Brass had entered the same, bearing in her hand a cold leg of mutton.

It was a very dark, miserable place, very low and very damp; the walls disfigured by a thousand rents and blotches. The water was trickling out of a leaky butt, and a most wretched cat was lapping up the drops with the sickly eagerness of starvation. The grate was screwed up so tight as to hold no more than a thin sandwich of fire. Everything was locked up; the coal-cellar, the candle-box, the salt-box, the meat-safe, were all padlocked. There was nothing that a beetle could have lunched on.

The small servant stood with humility in presence of Miss Sally, and hung her head.

"Are you there?" said Miss Sally.

"Yes ma'am," was the answer, in a weak voice.

"Go further away from the leg of mutton, or you'll be picking it, I know," said Miss Sally.

The girl withdrew into a corner, while Miss Brass opened the safe, and brought from it a dreary waste of cold potatoes, looking as eatable as Stonehenge. This she placed before the small servant, and then, taking up a great carving-knife, made a mighty show of sharpening it.

"Do you see this?" she said, slicing off about two square inches of cold mutton, and holding it out on the point of a fork.

The small servant looked hard enough at it with her hungry eyes to see every shred of it and answered, "Yes."

"Then don't you ever go and say," retorted Miss Sally, "that you hadn't meat here. There, eat it up."

This was soon done.

"Now, do you want any more?" said Miss Sally.

The hungry creature answered with a faint "No." They were evidently going through an established form.

"You've been helped once to meat," said Miss Brass, summing up the facts; "you have had as much as you can eat: you're asked if you want any more, and you answer 'No.' Then don't you ever go and say you were allowanced,--mind that!"

With those words, Miss Sally put the meat away, locked the meat-safe, and then overlooked the small servant while she finished the potatoes. After that, without the smallest cause, she rapped the child with the blade of the knife, now on her hand, now on her head, and now on her back. Then, after walking slowly backward towards the door, she darted suddenly forward, and falling on the small servant again, gave her some hard blows with her clenched fists. The victim cried, but in a subdued manner, as if she feared to raise her voice; and Miss Sally ascended the stairs just as Richard had safely reached the office, fairly beside himself with anger over the poor child's misery and ill-treatment.

During the following weeks, when he had become accustomed to the routine of work which he was expected to accomplish, and being often left alone in the office, Richard Swiveller began to find time hang heavy on his hands. For the better preservation of his cheerfulness, therefore, he accustomed himself to play at cribbage with a dummy. While he was silently conducting one of these games Mr. Swiveller began to think that he heard a kind of hard breathing sound, in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always had a cold from damp living. Looking intently that way, he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was aware of his approach.

"Oh! I didn't mean any harm, indeed, upon my word I didn't," cried the small servant; "it's so very dull downstairs. Please don't you tell upon me, please don't."

"Tell upon you!" said Dick. "Do you mean to say you were looking through the keyhole for company?"

"Yes, upon my word I was," replied the small servant.

"How long have you been cooling your eye there?" said Dick.

"Oh, ever since you first began to play them cards, and long before."

"Well--come in," said Mr. Swiveller, after a little consideration. "Here--sit down, and I'll teach you how to play."

"Oh! I durstn't do it," rejoined the small servant; "Miss Sally 'ud kill me if she knowed I come up here."

"Have you got a fire downstairs?" said Dick.

"A very little one," replied the small servant.

"Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she knowed I went down there, so I'll come," said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket. "Why, how thin you are! What do you mean by it?"

"It an't my fault."

"Could you eat any bread and meat?" said Dick, taking down his hat "Yes? Ah! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer?"

"I had a sip of it once," said the small servant.

"Here's a state of things!" cried Mr. Swiveller, raising his eyes to the ceiling. "She never tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip! Why, how old are you?"

"I don't know."

Mr. Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back, vanished straightway.

Presently he returned, followed by a boy from the public-house, who bore a plate of bread and beef, and a great pot filled with choice purl. Relieving the boy of his burden, and charging his little companion to fasten the door to prevent surprise, Mr. Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.

"There!" said Richard, putting the plate before her. "First of all, clear that off, and then you'll see what's next."

The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon empty.

"Next," said Dick, handing the purl, "take a pull at that, but moderate your transports, for you're not used to it. Well, is it good?"

"Oh, isn't it!" said the small servant.

Mr. Swiveller appeared immensely gratified over her enjoyment, and when she had satisfied her hunger, applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learned tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning.

"Now," said Mr. Swiveller, "to make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall call you the Marchioness, do you hear?"

The small servant nodded.

"Then, Marchioness," said Mr. Swiveller, "fire away!"

The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands, considered which to play, and Mr. Swiveller, assuming the gay and fashionable air which such society required, waited for her lead.

They had played several rubbers, when the striking of ten o'clock rendered Mr. Swiveller mindful of the flight of time, and of the expediency of withdrawing before Mr.