She died on the afternoon of the eighth.

On the morning of the ninth, I wrote, as in duty bound, to her stepmother at Hammersmith.
There was no answer.

I wrote again; my letter was returned to me this morning unopened.

For all that woman cares, Mary might be buried with a pauper's funeral; but this shall never be, if I pawn everything about me, down to the very gown that is on my back.

The bare thought of Mary being buried by the workhouse gave me the spirit to dry my eyes, and go to the undertaker's, and tell him how I was placed.