| 254 | 255 | 256 | 257 | 258 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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was, that his daughter could not take out an attorney's certificate and
hold a place upon the roll. Filled with this affectionate and touching
sorrow, he had solemnly confided her to his son Sampson as an
invaluable auxiliary; and from the old gentleman's decease to the
period of which we treat, Miss Sally Brass had been the prop and
pillar of his business.
It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one
pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the world,
otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a lady gifted
with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and softer arts in
which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked for. Miss Sally's
accomplishments were all of a masculine and strictly legal kind. They
began with the practice of an attorney and they ended with it. She was
in a state of lawful innocence, so to speak. The law had been her
nurse. And, as bandy-legs or such physical deformities in children are
held to be the consequence of bad nursing, so, if in a mind so
beautiful any moral twist or handiness could be found, Miss Sally
Brass's nurse was alone to blame.
It was on this lady, then, that Mr Swiveller burst in full freshness as
something new and hitherto undreamed of, lighting up the office with
scraps of song and merriment, conjuring with inkstands and boxes of
wafers, catching three oranges in one hand, balancing stools upon his
chin and penknives on his nose, and constantly performing a hundred
other feats with equal ingenuity; for with such unbendings did
Richard, in Mr Brass's absence, relieve the tedium of his confinement.
These social qualities, which Miss Sally first discovered by accident,
gradually made such an impression upon her, that she would entreat
Mr Swiveller to relax as though she were not by, which Mr Swiveller,
nothing loth, would readily consent to do. By these means a
friendship sprung up between them. Mr Swiveller gradually came to
look upon her as her brother Sampson did, and as he would have
looked upon any other clerk. He imparted to her the mystery of going
the odd man or plain Newmarket for fruit, ginger-beer, baked
potatoes, or even a modest quencher, of which Miss Brass did not
scruple to partake. He would often persuade her to undertake his
share of writing in addition to her own; nay, he would sometimes
reward her with a hearty slap on the back, and protest that she was a
devilish good fellow, a jolly dog, and so forth; all of which compliments
Miss Sally would receive in entire good part and with perfect
satisfaction.
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
the single gentleman rang his bell, when she would answer it and
immediately disappear again. She never went out, or came into the
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