Miss Merrywig was another of Angélique’s friends; but she had not been educated at S. Sulpice, and so the intercourse was sustained under difficulties. Her French was something terrific. She ignored genders, despised moods and tenses; and as to such interlopers as adverbs and prepositions, Miss Merrywig treated them with the contempt they deserved. Her mode of proceeding was extremely simple: she took a bundle of infinitives in one hand, and pronouns and adjectives in another, and shook them up together, and they fell into place the best way they could. It was wonderful how, somehow or other, they turned into sentences, and Angélique, by dint of good-will, always guessed what Miss Merrywig was driving at. A great bond between them was their love of a bargain. Miss Merrywig delighted in a bargain as only an old maid with an income of two hundred pounds a year can delight in it. She had, moreover, a passion for making everybody guess what she paid for things. This harmless peculiarity was apt to be a nuisance to her friends. The first thing she did after investing in a remnant of some sort, or a second-hand article, was to carry it the rounds of Dullerton, and insist on everybody’s guessing how much it cost. “Make a guess! You know what a good linsey costs, and you see this is pure wool; you can see that? you have only to feel it. Just feel it! It’s as soft as cashmere. That’s what tempted me. I don’t want it _exactly_, but then I mightn’t get _such_ a bargain when I did want it; and, as the young man at Willis’ said--they’re so _uncommonly_ civil at Willis’!--a good article _always_ brings its value; and there was no denying it _was_ a bargain, and one never _can_ go wrong in taking a good thing when one gets it cheap; and they do mix cotton so much with the wool nowadays that one can’t be too particular, as my dear mother used to say, though in her time it was of course very different. Now you’ve examined it, what do you think I gave for it?” There was no getting out of it: you might try to fight off on the plea that you had no experience in linseys, that you were no judge--Miss Merrywig would take no excuse. “Well, but give a guess. Say something. What would you consider _cheap_? You know what a stuff all pure wool _ought_ to be worth. Just give a guess. Remember, it was a bargain!” Thus adjured and driven into a corner, you timidly ventured a sum, and, whether you hit it or not, Miss Merrywig was aggrieved. If you fell below the mark, there was no describing her astonishment and disappointment. “Fifteen shillings! Dear _me_! Why, that’s the price of a common alpaca! Fifteen shillings! Good _gracious_! Oh? you can’t _mean_ it. Do guess again.” And when, to console her, you guessed double, and it happened to be right, she was still inconsolable.