Just as she pleased; only it would be as well not to let herself be seen over the blind till dusk. Could not she be just quilling up a frill or a collar while they sat, that would look a little better than the one she had on? Well, well: to be sure she might not be inclined for work, and there would be plenty of time, perhaps, when the bonnet was done. Whom or what did Hester want to hear about first?
Everybody. Everything. How was Mr. Pye?
“O very well, in all respects but his hearing. Poor man! Everybody sees that his deafness is growing upon him sadly; but he does not like to have it noticed, and I am afraid it would hurt him very much to mention such a thing as his using a trumpet; but how he is to get on in his shop, all by himself, without it, I don’t see. It was but last week I was there when a lady from the country was buying a little book; and while he was tying it up, she asked him what the bells were ringing for, forgetting that it was a royal birth-day. ‘What are the bells ringing for, Mr. Pye?’ says she. ‘Eighteen-pence, Madam,’ said he. ‘No,—the bells are ringing. Do you know what it is for?’ says she. ‘One and sixpence, Madam,’ said he. If it goes on so, ladies will not like coming to his shop; but he will never be persuaded to get a trumpet.”
“If we get him one,—if one came down from London on purpose for him, would he not use it? I think he would hardly refuse any gift from me.”
“If he thanked you, he would just put it by, and we should see no more of it.”
“Then he should have somebody to wait in his shop.”
“Aye: or somebody to be at his elbow to help him when he is puzzled. When he comes here of an evening, he has all sorts of ways of trying to find out what he is at a loss about, without exactly saying that he is at a loss. You cannot think what work I have sometimes to help him to guess out what people’s orders can mean, when he has caught only half of them.”
“What weakness! What a pity he should give so much trouble to himself and everybody else! However, I suppose there is one good consequence of this false shame. He does not teaze his next neighbour to tell him all that every body says.”
“No. I am generally with him when there is conversation going on; and he knows I tell him all that is worth hearing. Only, it is rather a pity that he pretends to have heard it the first time. However, we none of us know,—we might do the the same; and there is not a more upright, or a kinder man than Mr. Pye;—except, indeed, that he need not speak quite so sharply, sometimes when he happens to have heard what was said, and one repeats it all for his sake. But, as I said, we none of us know. I do so wonder whether he will come to-night! It is seldom he misses; especially since he has been a little out of spirits about his business.”
Hester was very sorry to hear of this. She had hoped that Mr. Pye’s old-established concern had been one of the least likely to suffer from the changes of the times.