ted. His refuge is the beer of the country.
Next day there were the two gentlemen to conduct the lady and her maid;
and Taffy the first walks beside the countess; and that girl Madge
trudges along with no other than my lord's Mr. Woodseer, chattering like
a watering-can on a garden-bed: deuce a glance at Kit Ines. How can she
keep it up and the gentleman no more than nodding? How does he enjoy
playing second fiddle with the maid while Mr. tall brown-face Taffy
violins it to her ladyship a stone's throw in front? Ines had less
curiosity to know the object of Mr. Woodseer's appearance on the scene.
Idle, unhandsomely treated, and a cave of the yawns, he merely commented
on his observations.
'Yes, there he is, don't look at him,' Madge said to Gower; 'and whatever
he's here for, he has a bad time of it, and rather more than it's
pleasant for him to think over, if a slave to a "paytron" thinks at all.
I won't judge him; my mistress is bitten with the fear for the child,
worse than ever. And the earl, my lord, not coming, and he wanting her to
move again, seems to her he durstn't do it here and intends to snap at
the child on the road. She-'s forced to believe anything of such a
husband and father. And why does he behave so? I can't spell it. He's
kind to my Sally--you've seen the Piccadilly shop?--because she was . . .
she did her best in love and duty for my lady. And behaves like a husband
hating his wife's life on earth! Then he went down with good Mr.
Woodseer, and called on Sally, pretending to inquire, after she was
kidnapped by that Kit Ines acting to please his paytron, he must be shown
up to the room where she slept, and stands at the door and peeps in,
Sally's letter says, and asks if he may enter the room. He went to the
window looking on the chimneys she used to see, and touched an ornament
over the fireplace, called grandfather's pigtail case--he was a sailor;
only a ridiculous piece of china, that made my lady laugh about the story
of its holding a pigtail. But he turns it over because she did--Sally
told him. He couldn't be pretending when he bought the beautiful shop and
stocked it for Sally. He gets her lots of customers; and no rent to pay
till next Michaelmas a year. She's a made woman through him. He said to
her, he had heard from Mr. Woodseer the Countess of Fleetwood called her
sister; he shook her hand.'
'The Countess of Fleetwood called both of you her sisters, I think,' said
Gower.
'I'm her
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