"Miss Puffle is a lady,—or was."
"No doubt, sir. The Puffles is not quite equal to the Prospers, as I can hear. But the Puffles is ladies—and gentlemen. The servants below all give it up to them that they're real gentlefolk. But—"
"Well?"
"She demeaned herself terribly with young Tazlehurst. They all said as there were more where that came from."
"What should they mean by that?"
"She'd indulge in low 'abits,—such as never would have been put up with at Buston Hall,—a-cursing and a-swearing—"
"Miss Puffle!"
"Not herself,—I don't say that; but it's like enough if you 'ad heard all. But them as lets others do it almost does it themselves. And them as lets others drink sperrrits o' mornings come nigh to having a dram down their own throats."
"Oh laws!" exclaimed Mr. Prosper, thinking of the escape he had had.
"You wouldn't have liked it, sir, if there had been a bottle of gin in the bedroom!" Here Mr. Prosper hid his face among the bedclothes. "It ain't all that comes silk out of the skein that does to make a purse of."