But what pleased me more than all the rest put together indeed, was Mr. Sk--n--st--n’s disgraceful conduct about the business. For when I had finished getting the house to rights--and he couldn’t help noticing how different I had got it to look from the shameful state it was in under Mrs. Burgess’s hands--my husband, in his blessed ignorance, supposed it to be all Miss Norah Connor’s doing; and he even carried it so far as to say to my very face he hoped that now I had got a good servant, I should know how to treat her, and not go disgusting her with the place by working the girl off her legs, as I seemed to have been doing. Of course I told him it was like his impudence, indeed, and that I had no patience with him, for though he was my husband he was no better than a child; and I asked him, how on earth he could ever be such a stupid as to fancy that the improved appearance of the house was all owing to Norah, and how much work he thought _she_ would have done if _I_ had not always been looking after her; for didn’t he know, that the mice would play if the cat was away. I told him moreover I was sorry to see that he was very ready to compliment _Norah_, though he never thought it worth his while to trouble his head for an instant about the labour and fatigue _I_ had gone through, in being obliged to keep dancing all the day long at the girl’s heels, as I had done. And I wound up by requesting him just for one moment to consider in his own mind what he thought would become of the sailors and the ship, if the pilot didn’t look alive, and neglected to put his best leg foremost for an instant.