Mrs.
Palfrey's receipt for brawn, hers being pronounced on all hands to be
superior to his own--as he informed her in a very flattering letter
carried by his errand-boy. Now Mrs. Palfrey, like other geniuses,
wrought by instinct rather than by rule, and possessed no
receipts--indeed, despised all people who used them, observing that
people who pickled by book, must pickle by weights and measures, and such
nonsense; as for herself, her weights and measures were the tip of her
finger and the tip of her tongue, and if you went nearer, why, of course,
for dry goods like flour and spice, you went by handfuls and pinches, and
for wet, there was a middle-sized jug--quite the best thing whether for
much or little, because you might know how much a teacupful was if you'd
got any use of your senses, and you might be sure it would take five
middle-sized jugs to make a gallon. Knowledge of this kind is like
Titian's colouring, difficult to communicate; and as Mrs. Palfrey, once
remarkably handsome, had now become rather stout and asthmatical, and
scarcely ever left home, her oral teaching could hardly be given anywhere
except at Long Meadows. Even a matron is not insusceptible to flattery,
and the prospect of a visitor whose great object would be to listen to
her conversation, was not without its charms to Mrs. Palfrey. Since
there was no receipt to be sent in reply to Mr. Freely's humble request,
she called on her more docile daughter, Penny, to write a note, telling
him that her mother would be glad to see him and talk with him on brawn,
any day that he could call at Long Meadows. Penny obeyed with a
trembling hand, thinking how wonderfully things came about in this world.
In this way, Mr. Freely got himself introduced into the home of the
Palfreys, and notwithstanding a tendency in the male part of the family
to jeer at him a little as "peaky" and bow-legged, he presently
established his position as an accepted and frequent guest. Young Towers
looked at him with increasing disgust when they met at the house on a
Sunday, and secretly longed to try his ferret upon him, as a piece of
vermin which that valuable animal would be likely to tackle with
unhesitating vigour. But--so blind sometimes are parents--neither Mr.
nor Mrs. Palfrey suspected that Penny would have anything to say to a
tradesman of questionable rank whose youthful bloom was much withered.
Young Towers, they thought, had an eye to her, and _that_ was likely
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