“May you never have a worse, if you ever catches any! And high time in life, ma’am, for you, Miss Jenny Marker, or Mrs. whichever you may be, and nobody in Sunbury knows the bottom of it, to be thinking a little now of your soul, ma’am, and less of your body, and the other things that perish. You draw in your cloak, ma’am, or it isn’t a cloak, nothing so suitable and sensible as that, just as if my poor goods wasn’t good enough to touch it! Perhaps that’s the reason why you beats them down so. I beg you to remember, Jenny Marker, that I consider myself as good as you are, madam, though I am not tricked out with gew-gaws and fal-lals. And what I eats, I earns, ma’am, and not the bread of servitude.” “That will do, my good woman. I never lose my temper; though I have never been insulted before like this, even by the lowest people. Send in your little bill, this very afternoon, if one of your wonderful neighbours will be good enough to make it out for you, as you have never been taught to write, poor thing! But whoever does it must not forget to deduct the price of three rotten French eggs.” CHAPTER VI. THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE. WHILE that bitter war was raging, I enjoyed a peaceful and gentle season. It happened that I had come up our village, on a matter of strict business, at a time of day not at all unlikely to be the very time of day mentioned over-night, as the one that would suit Mrs. Marker and Miss Fairthorn for doing a little business in our village. This might be explained, without any imputation on any one I have the pleasure of knowing, for all of them will admit at once that it needs no explanation. It is enough to say, that when I had the honour of seeing two ladies safe home last night, after pulling them out of the flood—as they both maintained, though never in it—no little gratitude had been expressed, and much good-will had been felt all round. And it would have been hard upon that state of things, if any “Good-bye” had been said for ever. For my part, although I had no great fear of being knocked on the head by Sam Henderson, it might have seemed haughty and even unfeeling, if I had insisted too strongly upon my ability to take care of myself. Therefore I allowed them to consider me in peril; and to this I was partly indebted perhaps for the opportunity of meeting them on Monday. It is true that I had not learned half as much, about matters of the deepest interest to me, as Mrs. Cutthumb, without any claim to such knowledge, was now possessed of; but this might fairly be expected, for women have always been convinced that men have no right to know half as much as themselves. “Let him find it out, I am not going to tell him,” is their too frequent attitude, while they feel it a duty to their own sex to pour out almost everything.