A Woman's Burden by Fergus Hume

One afternoon, some twelve months later, Miriam sat sewing in the drawing-room of the little flat at Rosary Mansions. The work she had in hand was a nether garment intended for old Mother Mandarin, whom for long past she had been trying to reform. But Mother Mandarin did not want to be reformed, though she sadly wanted nether garments. The only wants to which she confessed -- which indeed she expressed -- were gin, tobacco, and what she termed "blunt," this latter being her playful way of referring to the coin of the realm. For years she had inhabited her den in the Lambeth slums, where she was wont to receive all sorts and conditions of men -- Lascars, Chinamen, and Europeans of every nationality.

At eighty-five she was not inclined for learning any new tricks, and though Miriam -- now on outside charity bent, it having of necessity ceased at home -- did everything she knew to bring her to a sense of what was right and decent in life, Mother Mandarin was not to be roused to any degree of enthusiasm. Cleanly ways were not her ways, and her ways for the last five-and-eighty years had been good enough for her.