"He said, was Mrs. Chaffen at home, and could he see her," replied Sam. "He's a waiting outside:"
Mrs. Chaffen sat back on her heels, one hand resting on the bucket, the other grasping the wet scrubbing-brush, and her face the very picture of consternation as she stared at the boy. She had believed herself free for a full week to come.
"Is it Mr. Henley himself, Sam?"
"It ain't Mr. Henley at all," said Sam. "It's the gentleman what's staying at Mrs. Jinks's."
"What the plague brings him here this morning of all others, when I've got the floor in a sop and not a chair to ask him to set down upon!" cried the woman, relieved of her great fear, but vexed nevertheless to be interrupted in her work, and believing the intruder to be Mr. Cattacomb, come on one of his pastoral visits: for that excellent divine made no scruple, in his zeal, of looking in occasionally on Mr. Sumnor's flock as well as his own. "Parsons be frightful bothers sometimes!"
"'Tain't the parson; it's the t'other one?" said Sam Bull.
Mrs. Chaffen rose from her knees, stepped gingerly across the wet floor, and took a peep through the window. There she saw Mr. Strange in the centre of a tribe of young Bulls, dividing among them a piece of lettered gingerbread. Sam, afraid of not coming in for his share of the letters, bolted out of the room.
"Ask the gentleman if he'll be pleased to step in, Sam, and to excuse the litter," she called after the boy. "I don't mind him," she mentally added, seizing upon a mop to mop the wet off the floor, and then letting down her gown, "and he must want something particular of me; but I'd not have cared to stand Cattakin's preaching this busy morning."
Mr. Strange came in in his pleasant way, admiring everything, from the room to the bucket, and assuring her he rather preferred wet floors to dry ones. While she was reaching him a chair and dusting it with her damp apron, he held out his hand, pointing to where the cuts had been.
"Look here, Mrs. Chaffen. I have been thinking of coming to you this day or two past, but fancied I might see you in Paradise Row, for I'd rather have your opinion than a doctor's at any time. The hand has healed, you see."