'" Also she
had a rooted belief that one day she and 'luvly miss' would be
"hangels wiv' black weils and basticks." This puzzled me for some
time, until I discovered it to be an allusion to the good deaconess
who attended her, and whom Mrs Brown in gratitude designated by
this title.
Alas for little Miss Brown and her 'luvly miss'! their respective
ends were drawing near. I went in one Friday, a week or so after
the accident, and found Mrs Brown in tears and despair, and Miss
Brown with a look of anguish on her poor little pinched face that
was bad to see. 'Luvly Miss' was no more.
It was Mr Brown again; or, to trace back the links of occasion, it
was the action of 'The Three Fingers' on Mr Brown's frail
constitution. He had come in late, seen 'luvly miss' on the table,
and, with his usual heedlessness of consequence, had chucked her
into the dying embers where--alas that I should have to say it!--
she slowly baked. Little Miss Brown, when the miserable truth was
broken to her, neither wept nor remonstrated; she lay quite still
with a look of utter forsaken wretchedness on her tiny white face,
and moaned very softly for 'luvly miss.'
I came face to face with this state of things and I confess it
staggered me. I knew Miss Brown too well to hope that any pink-
and-white darling from the toy-shop could replace 'luvly miss,' or
that she could be persuaded to admit even a very image of the dear
departed into her affections.
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