The String of Pearls (1850), p. 440

take place below; but still Mrs.Lovett was determined to leave nothing to chance, and she left Mrs. Stag a note which was to go down on the movable platform to the cook in case she, Mrs. Lovett, was not at home at the twelve o'clock batch. This note contained the following words, which, as Mrs. Stag's parents and guardians had omitted to include reading in her education, were perfectly safe from her scrutiny—
"Send up the four o'clock batch, and you will be free within twenty-four hours from then."
This she concluded would keep him quiet; and within twenty -four hours Mrs. Lovett felt that her affairs must be settled in some way or another; so that it was a very safe promise, even if she had not still retained in her own hands the means of breaking it if there should be occasion so to do.
Truly, Mrs. Lovett was, in the full acceptation of the term, a woman of business.
Mrs. Stag was sure to look-in the first thing in the morning upon Mrs. Lovett; so that as soon as that useful and submissive personage made her appearance in Bell Yard, she was duly installed in authority in the shop—the parlour being properly fastened up against Mrs. Stag and all intruders.
"You will be so good as to sit here until I come back, Mrs. Stag?" said Mrs. Lovett; "and sell as many pies as you can. I am going to the christening of a friend's child, who is anxious that I should be its godmother."
What a delightful godmother Mrs. Lovett would have made!
"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Stag.
"I think I shall be back at twelve o'clock; but if I am not, you can let this note go down with the empty tray on the trap-door after you have slid off it the twelve o' clock batch of pies."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You will answer no questions to any one. All you have to say is, that I am out in the neighbourhood, and may come home at any minute, as indeed I may. I shall, of course, pay you, Mrs. Stag, for your whole day. Pray help yourself to a pie or two, as you feel inclined. Good morning."
"Good mornin'," ma'am, good mornin'. She's a very pleasant woman," said Mrs. Stag, after Mrs. Lovett had left; "she's a remarkably pleasant woman. What a delicious pie, to be sure!"
Mrs. Stag was deep in the mysteries of a yesterday's veal.
"It's very odd," added the laundress, as she wiped the gravy from the sides of her mouth; " it's very odd that Mrs. Lovett is so very particular in shutting up her parlour always, when she might know what a likely thing it is that anybody may want to look at the drawers and cupboards. It's a most remarkable thing to think what she can have there that she will lock up in such a way."
Upon this, just with a faint forlorn sort of hope that the door might be left open, Mrs. Stag tried it, but it was fast; and, with a sigh of disappointment, she returned to her seat again. In another moment a yesterday's pork yielded up its fascinations to the appetite of Mrs. Stag.
This, then, was the sort of life that Mrs. Stag passed in the shop. Lamentations and gravy—gravy and lamentations; and while she was thus occupied, the cook was pacing the cellars in rather a discontented mood, with his hands behind his back, reflecting upon things past, present, and to come, and upon his
own dismal situation in particular.
"I cannot stand this,* he said, "I really cannot stand this. I have had promises from Mrs. Lovett of freedom, and I have had similar promises from he who came to the grating in the door, but none of the promises have been fulfilled. I cannot stand this any longer, it is impossible. I am driven mad as it is already. I must do something. I can no longer exist in this way."
The cook looked about him, as many people are in the habit of doing when