And I talk to
several toppermost carriage people that come to my lord's without
saying ma'am or sir to 'em, and they take it as quiet as lambs.'
'You curtseyed to the vicar, mother; and I wish you hadn't.'
'But it was before he called me by my Christian name, or he would
have got very little curtseying from me!' said Mrs. Smith,
bridling and sparkling with vexation. 'You go on at me, Stephen,
as if I were your worst enemy! What else could I do with the man
to get rid of him, banging it into me and your father by side and
by seam, about his greatness, and what happened when he was a
young fellow at college, and I don't know what-all; the tongue o'
en flopping round his mouth like a mop-rag round a dairy. That 'a
did, didn't he, John?'
'That's about the size o't,' replied her husband.
'Every woman now-a-days,' resumed Mrs. Smith, 'if she marry at
all, must expect a father-in-law of a rank lower than her father.
The men have gone up so, and the women have stood still. Every
man you meet is more the dand than his father; and you are just
level wi' her.'
'That's what she thinks herself.'
'It only shows her sense. I knew she was after 'ee, Stephen--I
knew it.'
'After me! Good Lord, what next!'
'And I really must say again that you ought not to be in such a
hurry, and wait for a few years. You might go higher than a
bankrupt pa'son's girl then.'
'The fact is, mother,' said Stephen impatiently, 'you don't know
anything about it.
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