"Well, little Impropriety, what excuse have you to hand?"
Betty asked what Impropriety meant.
"Would it be stealing you mean, ma'am?"
"Well, Madam Indecency!"
Betty suddenly saw the widow's amber petticoat gleaming through the unfastened placket.
"Dear love and barley breaks! However did I come to leave that undone! Never mind, ma'am. 'Tis not as if he'd caught a sight of your smock, though for my part I should not be afraid to show clean linen to any man, Bow or whatsoever."
"'Tis not to talk of plackets that I called you, hussy, but of packets—love-packets, notes, letters, assignations."
Betty began to understand. She remembered how they had met Mr. Ripple that morning in Curtain Garden, and at once connected the two incidents.
"'Twould be about this very forenoon that you are talking, ma'am?"
The widow was surprized. She had expected an impregnable barrier of mock stupidity.