‘He married! The Lord so ‘s, what shall we hear next? Do he look married now? His are not the abashed eyes and lips of a married man.’
‘Perhaps she’s a tame one—but she’s his wife still.’
‘No, no: he’s not a married man.’
‘Yes, yes, he is. I’ve had three, and I ought to know.’
‘Well, well,’ said Mrs. Leat, giving way. ‘Whatever may be the truth on’t I trust Providence will settle it all for the best, as He always do.’
‘Ay, ay, Elizabeth,’ rejoined Mrs. Crickett with a satirical sigh, as she turned on her foot to go home, ‘good people like you may say so, but I have always found Providence a different sort of feller.’
5. NOVEMBER THE TWENTIETH
It was Miss Aldclyffe’s custom, a custom originated by her father, and nourished by her own exclusiveness, to unlock the post-bag herself every morning, instead of allowing the duty to devolve on the butler, as was the case in most of the neighbouring county families. The bag was brought upstairs each morning to her dressing-room, where she took out the contents, mostly in the presence of her maid and Cytherea, who had the entree of the chamber at all hours, and attended there in the morning at a kind of reception on a small scale, which was held by Miss Aldclyffe of her namesake only.
Here she read her letters before the glass, whilst undergoing the operation of being brushed and dressed.
‘What woman can this be, I wonder?’ she said on the morning succeeding that of the last section. ‘“London, N.!” It is the first time in my life I ever had a letter from that outlandish place, the North side of London.’