“It’s a little un,” observed Rachel.
“Little or big, it’s a false one,” answered Temperance. “There’s a prim, fixed, sanctimonious look about it that I wouldn’t trust with anything I cared to see safe.”
“Eh, I’d none trust one o’ them—not to sell a pound o’ butter,” said Rachel. “And by th’ same token, Mrs Temperance, I mun be home to skim th’ cream, or Charity’ll take it off like a gaumless (stupid) lass as hoo (she) is. Hoo can do some things, well enough, but hoo cannot skim cream!”
“Go, good maid, if thou canst win out of this crowd, but methinks thou shalt have thy work cut out to do so.”
“Eh, she will,” said Mrs Abbott. “And mind you, Rachel! if you pull yourself forth, you’ll find your gown in rags by the time you’re at home. I do hope, neighbour, you deal not with Simpkinson, in the Strand; that rogue sold me ten ells of green stamyn, and charged me thirty shillings the ell, and I vow it was scarce made up ere it began a-coming to bits. I’ll give it him when I can catch him! and if I serve not our Seth out for dinting in the blackjack last night, I’m a Dutch woman, and no mistake! Black jacks are half-a-crown apiece, and so I told him; but I’ll give him a bit more afore I’ve done with him; trust me. There is no keeping lads in order. The mischievousness of ’em’s past count. My husband, he says, ‘Lads will be lads,’—he’s that easy, if a mouse ran away with his supper from under his nose, he’d only call after it, ‘Much good may it do thee.’ Do you ever hear mice in your house, Mrs Murthwaite! I’m for ever and the day after plagued wi’ them, and I do wish those lads ’ud make theirselves a bit useful and catch ’em, instead o’ dinting in black jacks. But, dear heart, you’ll as soon catch the mice as catch them at aught that’s useful. They’ll—”
“My mistress,” said Mrs Abbott’s next neighbour, “may I ask if your husband be a very silent man?”
“I’m sure o’ that,” said the man who followed him.
“Eh, bless you, they all talk and chatter at our house while I can’t slip a word in,” was the lady’s answer.
“That’s why she has so many to let go out o’ door,” remarked the last speaker.
“I thought so,” observed the neighbour, “because I have marked that men and women do mostly wed with their contraries.”