My lady's tongue is like the meadow blades,

That cut you stroking them with idle hand.

Nice cutting is her function: she divides

With spiritual edge the millet-seed,

And makes intangible savings.

As Mr. Casaubon's carriage was passing out of the gateway, it arrested

the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady with a servant seated

behind. It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual, for

Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him; but the lady was

quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a "How do you do?" in the nick of time.

In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain

that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the

low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance of the small phaeton.

"Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?" said the

high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.

"Pretty well for laying, madam, but they've ta'en to eating their eggs:

I've no peace o' mind with 'em at all."

"Oh, the cannibals! Better sell them cheap at once. What will you

sell them a couple? One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high

price."

"Well, madam, half-a-crown: I couldn't let 'em go, not under."

"Half-a-crown, these times! Come now--for the Rector's chicken-broth

on a Sunday. He has consumed all ours that I can spare. You are half

paid with the sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that. Take a pair of

tumbler-pigeons for them--little beauties. You must come and see them.

You have no tumblers among your pigeons."

"Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see 'em after work. He's

very hot on new sorts; to oblige you."

"Oblige me! It will be the best bargain he ever made. A pair of

church pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own

eggs! Don't you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!"

The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs.

Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional

"Surely, surely!"-from which it might be inferred that she would

have found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's lady had

been less free-spoken and less of a skinflint. Indeed, both the

farmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have

felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs.

Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended,

as it were, from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades--who

pleaded poverty, pared down prices, and cut jokes in the most

companionable manner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know

who she was. Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and

religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. A much

more exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity would not

have furthered their comprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and

would have been less socially uniting.




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