And my child is a troublesome, bad child, and costs me a world of
scolding. I would rather you didn't see my child."
"A doll?" said the visitor, not understanding, and looking for an
explanation.
But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, "_Her father_,"
he took his leave immediately, and presently the weak and shambling
figure of the child's father stumbled in, to be expostulated with, and
scolded, and treated as the person of the house always treated him, when
he came home in such a pitiable condition.
While they ate their supper, Lizzie tried to bring the child round again
to that prettier and better state. But the charm was broken. The dolls'
dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew, of the world, worldly; of
the earth, earthy.
Poor dolls' dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should
have raised her up; how often so misdirected when losing her way on the
eternal road and asking guidance! Poor, poor little dolls' dressmaker.
One of Miss Jenny's firmest friends was an aged Jew, Mr. Riah, by name;
of venerable aspect, and a generous and noble nature. He was supposedly
the head of the firm of Pubsey and Co., at Saint-Mary-Axe, but really
only the agent of one Mr. Fledgeby, a miserly young dandy who directed
all the aged Jew's transactions, and forced him into sharp, unfair
dealings with those whom Mr. Riah himself would gladly have befriended;
shielding his own meanness and dishonesty behind the venerable figure of
the Jew, and keeping his own connection with the firm a profound secret.
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