England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; Sunday
be expected to understand what people feel, who only have a meat dinner
on one day out of every seven.
The bakings being all duly consigned to their respective owners, and the
beer-man having gone his rounds, the church bells ring for afternoon
service, the shops are again closed, and the streets are more than ever
thronged with people; some who have not been to church in the morning,
going to it now; others who have been to church, going out for a walk;
and others—let us admit the full measure of their guilt—going for a walk,
who have not been to church at all. I am afraid the smart servant of all
work, who has been loitering at the corner of the square for the last ten
minutes, is one of the latter class. She is evidently waiting for
somebody, and though she may have made up her mind to go to church with
him one of these mornings, I don’t think they have any such intention on
this particular afternoon. Here he is, at last. The white trousers,
blue coat, and yellow waistcoat—and more especially that cock of the
hat—indicate, as surely as inanimate objects can, that Chalk Farm and not
the parish church, is their destination. The girl colours up, and puts
out her hand with a very awkward affectation of indifference. He gives
it a gallant squeeze, and away they walk, arm in arm, the girl just
looking back towards her ‘place’ with an air of conscious
self-importance, and nodding to her fellow-servant who has gone up to the
two-pair-of-stairs window, to take a full view of ‘Mary’s young man,’
which being communicated to William, he takes off his hat to the
fellow-servant: a proceeding which affords unmitigated satisfaction to
all parties, and impels the fellow-servant to inform Miss Emily
confidentially, in the course of the evening, ‘that the young man as Mary
keeps company with, is one of the most genteelest young men as ever she
see.’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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