‘Augustus—Mr Pinch, you know. My dear girl!’ said Miss Pecksniff, aside. ‘I never was so ashamed in my life.’
Ruth begged her not to think of it.
‘I mind your brother less than anybody else,’ simpered Miss Pecksniff. ‘But the indelicacy of meeting any gentleman under such circumstances! Augustus, my child, did you—’
Here Miss Pecksniff whispered in his ear. The suffering Moddle repeated:
‘Twenty-four pound ten!’
‘Oh, you silly man! I don’t mean them,’ said Miss Pecksniff. ‘I am speaking of the—’
Here she whispered him again.
‘If it’s the same patterned chintz as that in the window; thirty-two, twelve, six,’ said Moddle, with a sigh. ‘And very dear.’
Miss Pecksniff stopped him from giving any further explanation by laying her hand upon his lips, and betraying a soft embarrassment. She then asked Tom Pinch which way he was going.
‘I was going to see if I could find your sister,’ answered Tom, ‘to whom I wished to say a few words. We were going to Mrs Todgers’s, where I had the pleasure of seeing her before.’