“Oh, no, no. Name o’ goodness! I didn’t mean that,” rejoined he, laughing with reassuring waggery. “A fine figger of a lady like you to be sellin’ up! A pretty pass that would be.”
“May I ask what your business is?” said Anne, drawing herself up. “I have a great deal to do this morning.”
He brought his chair a little nearer.
“I’ve heard a sight o’ beautiful words about you,” he said, throwing an admiring leer into his eye, “from this one an’ that. ’Tis common talk what a fine lady you be wi’ your silk an’ satins, an’ your holy doin’s in chapel. Ah, a sad thing it was for the respected Mr. Walters that’s gone before to be leavin’ ye alone. I’ll be bound he hasn’t found an angel to match ye in the glorious place where he now is.”
It flashed across Mrs. Walters that the Pig-driver must be mad, and she rose from her chair.
“Sit ye down again, do now,” he said. “I ax pardon if I be too feelin’ in my speech, but what can I do when I see such handsome looks an’ high ways before me? A man’s heart will feel for ye, seein’ ye so unprotected. ‘Beauty in distress,’ ma’am, as Holy Writ has it.” He chuckled at his own aptness of quotation.
“I am not unprotected,” said Anne Walters, who was growing very angry, “and you will find it out if you will not come to business or leave the house.”
“No offence meant. No doubt eddicated manners seem queer to ye in a plain man like me,” he said lightly, drawing the back of his hand across his nose.
“Kindly say what your business is, or go.”
Bumpett had fallen into the common masculine error of treating all women alike, and it began to strike him that he was on the wrong tack. His companion was no less sensible to flattery than the rest of her fellow-creatures, but flattery is a dish which should be dressed differently for every person. He took a less gallant attitude.