"Impudent wretch!" moaned Mrs. Heale to herself. "He'd drive away an angel if he came into the shop."
"Oh, ma! hear how they are going on now."
"I can't bear it, my dear. This man will be the ruin of us. His manners are those of the pot-house, when the cloven foot is shown, which it's his nature as a child of wrath, and we can't expect otherwise."
"Oh, ma! do you hear that Mr. Trebooze has asked him to dinner?"
"Nonsense!"
But it was true.
"Well! if there ain't the signs of the end of the world, which is? All the years your poor father has been here, and never so much as send him a hare, and now this young penniless interloper; and he to dine at Trebooze off purple and fine linen."
"There is not much of that there, ma; I'm sure they are poor enough, for all his pride; and as for her—"
"Yes, my dear; and as for her, though we haven't married squires, my dear, yet we haven't been squires' housemaids, and have adorned our own station, which was good enough for us, and has no need to rise out of it, nor ride on Pharaoh's chariot-wheels after filthy lucre—"
Miss Heale hated poor Mrs. Trebooze with a bitter hatred, because she dreamed insanely that, but for her, she might have secured Mr. Trebooze for herself. And though her ambition was now transferred to the unconscious Tom, that need not make any difference in the said amiable feeling.