“Dear me, ma’am, you are warm!” simpered Miss Miskin.
“I warm! What do you mean, Miss Miskin?”
“You are warm, ma’am:— not that it is of any consequence; but you are a little warm at present.”
“Nobody can charge that upon you, Miss Miskin, I must say,” observed Margaret, laughing.
“No, ma’am, that they cannot, nor ever will. I am not apt to be warm, and I hope I can excuse... Good morning, ladies.”
Mrs Howell treated her customers with a swimming curtsey as they went out, glancing at her shop-woman the while. Lady Hunter favoured them with a full stare.
“What excessive impertinence!” exclaimed Hester. “To tell me that I was warm, and she hoped she could excuse! My husband will hardly believe it.”
“Oh, yes, he will. He knows them for two ignorant, silly women; worth observing, perhaps, but not worth minding. Have you any other shop to go to?”
Yes, the tinman’s, for a saucepan or two of a size not yet supplied, for which Morris had petitioned.
The tinman was either unable or not very anxious to understand Hester’s requisitions. He brought out everything but what was wanted; and was so extremely interested in observing something that was going on over the way, that he was every moment casting glances abroad between the dutch-ovens and fenders that half-darkened his window. The ladies at last looked over the way too, and saw a gig containing a black footman standing before the opposite house.