"Come up this afternoon and see my child; Mrs. Trebooze thinks it's got swelled glands, or some such woman's nonsense. Bother them, why can't they let the child alone, fussing and doctoring; and she will have you. Heard of you from Mrs. Vavasour, I believe. Our doctor and I have quarrelled, and she said, if I could get you, she'd sooner have you than that old rum-puncheon Heale. And then, you'd better stop and take pot-luck, and we'll make a night of it." "I have to go round Lord Minchampstead's estates, and will take you on my way: but I'm afraid I shall be too dirty to have the pleasure of dining with Mrs. Trebooze coming back." "Mrs. Trebooze! She must take what I like; and what's good enough for me is good enough for her, I hope. Come as you are--Liberty Hall at Trebooze;" and out he swaggered. "Does he bully her?" thought Tom, "or is he hen-pecked, and wants to hide it? I'll see to-night, and play my cards accordingly." All which Miss Heale had heard. She had been peeping and listening at the glass-door, and her mother also; for no sooner had Trebooze entered the shop, than she had run off to tell her mother the surprising fact, Trebooze's custom having been, for some years past, courted in vain by Heale. So Miss Heale peeped and peeped at a man whom she regarded with delighted curiosity, because he bore the reputation of being "such a naughty wicked man!" and "so very handsome too, and so distinguished as he looks!" said the poor little fool, to whose novel-fed imagination Mr. Trebooze was an ideal Lothario. But the surprise of the two dames grew rapidly as they heard Tom's audacity towards the country aristocrat. "Impudent wretch!" moaned Mrs. Heale to herself. "He'd drive away an angel if he came into the shop." "Oh, ma! hear how they are going on now." "I can't bear it, my dear. This man will be the ruin of us. His manners are those of the pot-house, when the cloven foot is shown, which it's his nature as a child of wrath, and we can't expect otherwise." "Oh, ma! do you hear that Mr. Trebooze has asked him to dinner?" "Nonsense!" But it was true. "Well! if there ain't the signs of the end of the world, which is? All the years your poor father has been here, and never so much as send him a hare, and now this young penniless interloper; and he to dine at Trebooze off purple and fine linen." "There is not much of that there, ma; I'm sure they are poor enough, for all his pride; and as for her--" "Yes, my dear; and as for her, though we haven't married squires, my dear, yet we haven't been squires' housemaids, and have adorned our own station, which was good enough for us, and has no need to rise out of it, nor ride on Pharaoh's chariot-wheels after filthy lucre--"