“Well, it’s just this—I won’t be pried upon by that young lady.”
“What young lady, ma’am?” asked Mrs. Tarnley, who fancied she might ironically mean Miss Lilly Dogger.
“Harry Fairfield’s wife, of course, what other? I choose to be private here,” said the Dutch dame imperiously.
“She’ll not pry—she don’t pry on no one, and if she wished it, she couldn’t.”
“Why, there’s nothing between us, woman, but the long closet where you used to keep the linen, and the broken furniture and rattle-traps” (raddle-drabs she pronounced the word), “and she’ll come and peep—every woman peeps and pries” (beebs and bries she called the words)—“I peep and pry. She’ll just pretend she never knew any one was there, and she’ll walk in through the closet door, and start, and beg my pardon, and say how sorry she is, and then go off, and tell you next morning how many buttons are on my pelisse, and how many pins in my pincushion, and let all the world know everything about me.”
“But she can’t come in.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because, ma’am, the door is papered over.”
“Fine protection—paper!” sneered the lady.
“I saw her door locked myself before ’twas papered over,” said Mildred.