We all cried, especially in church and about
the grave, and when the sexton threw in the soil it sounded that hollow it
made me sob. Julia, she lost her 'ead and asked to be buried with mother,
and I had to lead her away; and then we went 'ome to dinner."
"Oh, Jenny, our poor mother gone from us for ever! How did she die? Tell
me, was it a peaceful death? Did she suffer?"
"There ain't much to tell. Mother was taken bad almost immediately after
you was with us the last time. Mother was that bad all the day long and
all night too we could 'ardly stop in the 'ouse; it gave one just the
creeps to listen to her crying and moaning."
"And then?"
"Why, then the baby was born. It was dead, and mother died of weakness;
prostration the doctor called it."
Esther hid her face in the pillow. Jenny waited, and an anxious look of
self began to appear on the vulgar London street face.
"Look 'ere, Esther, you can cry when I've gone; I've a deal to say to yer
and time is short."
"Oh, Jenny, don't speak like that! Father, was he kind to mother?"
"I dunno that he thought much about it; he spent 'alf 'is time in the
public, 'e did. He said he couldn't abide the 'ouse with a woman
a-screaming like that. One of the neighbours came in to look after mother,
and at last she had the doctor." Esther looked at her sister through
streaming tears, and the woman in the other bed alluded to the folly of
poor women being confined "in their own 'omes--in a 'ome where there is a
drunken 'usband, and most 'omes is like that nowadays.
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