200 EXTRACTS FROM NOTE-BOOKS. CH. XXXIII. 



corrections necessary to complete their education, 

 without becoming too shy to perform their part 

 well. 



The woman, though clever enough in her way 

 and well spoken, was a melancholy specimen of a 

 peculiar class. Sold by her parents, if she ever 

 had any decided relatives of that kind, at an early 

 age to the leader of some itinerant party of rope- 

 dancers, or walkers on stilts — when she had mas- 

 tered these respectable sciences, she acted in the 

 capacity of rope-dancer, or fifth-rate figurante, in 

 some fifth-rate theatre. Disabled by an accident — 

 a broken ankle — from following these employments, 

 she was reduced at last to travelling to country 

 fairs and markets in a painted caravan, the ill-used 

 companion of some whiskered ruffian, arrayed in a 

 fur cap, red plush waistcoat, corduroy breeches, 

 white stockings, and ankle boots — the invariable 

 dress of all masters of show-caravans. And now 

 the poor woman, ruined in health and mhid by 

 hardship and dissipation, earns a precarious living 

 by wandering through the country, and exhibiting 

 her learned dogs, and her unlearned children, who, 

 by dint of beating and starving, had been initiated 

 into the mysteries of their respective callings. She 

 assured me with great professional energy, that one 

 of my dogs, a large poodle, would make a first-rate 



