The things we do!

Miss Cann dines with Mrs. Ridley in the adjoining little
back-parlour. Ridley but seldom can be spared to partake of the family
dinner, his duties in the house and about the person of my Lord Todmorden
keeping him constantly near that nobleman. How little Miss Cann can go on
and keep alive on the crumb she eats for breakfast, and the scrap she
picks at dinner, du astonish Mrs. Ridley, that it du! She declares that
the two canary-birds encaged in her window (whence is a cheerful prospect
of the back of Lady Whittlesea's Chapel) eat more than Miss Cann. The two
birds set up a tremendous singing and chorussing when Miss Cann, spying
the occasion of the first-floor lodger's absence, begins practising her
music-pieces. Such trills, roulades, and flourishes go on from the birds
and the lodger! it is a wonder how any fingers can move over the jingling
ivory so quickly as Miss Cann's. Excellent a woman as she is, admirably
virtuous, frugal, brisk, honest, and cheerful, I would not like to live
in lodgings where there was a lady so addicted to playing variations.


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