“I want no mouldy old stuff!—There! Put the yellow silk on the lowest shelf.”
“’Tis old-fashioned, I warrant you, to say to your sister, ‘An’ it please you’?”
“And the murrey right above.—Oh, stuff!”
The first half of the sentence was for Clare; the second for Rachel.
“’Tis not ill stuff, Niece,” said the latter coolly, as she left the room.
“And what thinkest of Gertrude?” inquired Sir Thomas of his sister, when she rejoined him and Lady Enville.
“Marry!” said Rachel in her dryest manner, “I think the goods be mighty dear at the price.”
“I count,” returned her brother, “that when Gertrude’s gowns be paid for, there shall not be much left over for Jack’s debts.”
“Dear heart! you should have thought so, had you been above but now. To see her Grace (for she carrieth her like a queen) a-counting of her gowns, and a-cursing of her poor maid Audrey that two were left behind, when seventeen be yet in her coffers!”
“Seventeen!” repeated the Squire, in whose eyes that number was enough to stock any reasonable woman for at least half her life.