There was much that was casual, and, therefore, callous about the circumstances attending the ceaseless succession of births; they might as well have been kittens, their mothers cats, so Mavis thought, owing to the mean indignities attaching to the initial stages of their motherhood.  It did not occur to her how house-room, furniture, doctors, nurses, and servants supply dignity to a commonplace process of nature.  It seemed to Mavis that Mrs Gowler lived in an atmosphere of horror and pain.  At the same time, the girl had the sense to realise that Mrs Gowler had her use in life, inasmuch as she provided a refuge for the women, which salved their pride (no small matter) by enabling them to forego entering the workhouse infirmary, which otherwise could not have been avoided.

Oscar inspired Mavis with an inexpressible loathing.  For the life of her, she could not understand why such terrible caricatures of humanity were permitted to live, and were not put out of existence at birth.  The common trouble of Mrs Gowler’s lodgers seemed to establish a feeling of fellowship amongst them during the time that they were there.  Mavis was not a little surprised to receive one day a request from a woman, to the effect that she should give this person’s baby a “feed,” the mother not being so happily endowed in this respect as Mavis.  The latter’s indignant refusal gave rise to much comment in the place.

The “permanent” was soon on her feet, an advantage which she declared was owing to her previous fecundity.  Mavis could see how the “permanent” despised her because she was merely nursing her first-born.

“’As Piggy ’ad a go at your box yet?” she one day asked Mavis, who replied: 

“I’m too careful.  I always keep it locked.”

“Locks ain’t nothin’ to her.  If you’ve any letters from a gentleman, as would compromise him, burn them.”

“Why?”

“If she gets hold of ’em, she’ll make money on ’em.”

“Nonsense!  She wouldn’t dare.”

“Wouldn’t she!  Piggy ’ud do anythink for gin or that there dear comic Oscar.”

In further talks with the “permanent,” Mavis discovered that, for all her acquaintance’s good nature, she was much of a liar, although her frequent deviations from the truth were caused by the woman’s boundless vanity.  Time after time she would give Mavis varying accounts of the incidents attending her many lapses from virtue, in all of which drugging by officers of His Majesty’s army played a conspicuous part.

Mavis, except at meal times, saw little of Mrs Gowler, who was usually in the downstair parlour or in other rooms of the house.  Whenever she saw Mavis, however, she persistently urged her to board out her baby with one of the several desirable motherly females she was in a position to recommend.  Mrs Gowler pointed out the many advantages of thus disposing of Mavis’s boy till such time as would be more convenient for mother and son to live together.  But Mavis now knew enough of Mrs Gowler and her ways; she refused to dance to the woman’s assiduous piping.  But Mrs Gowler was not to be denied.  One day, when Mavis was sitting up in bed, Mrs Gowler burst into the room to announce proudly that Mrs Bale had come to see Mavis about taking her baby to nurse.