"Whither away, so late?" said the barber, whom they passed seated with
his starveling boys round a mess of stockfish and parsnips, in the
shop below.
"If I were to tell you, Gaffer," said the dame, with most contemptuous
coolness, "I do not think you could do my errand, so I will e'en keep
it to myself." Benjamin was too much accustomed to his wife's
independent mode of conduct, to pursue his inquiry farther; nor did
the dame tarry for farther question, but marched out at the door,
telling the eldest of the boys "to sit up till her return, and look to
the house the whilst."
The night was dark and rainy, and although the distance betwixt the
two shops was short, it allowed Dame Ursley leisure enough, while she
strode along with high-tucked petticoats, to embitter it by the
following grumbling reflections--"I wonder what I have done, that I
must needs trudge at every old beldam's bidding, and every young
minx's maggot! I have been marched from Temple Bar to Whitechapel, on
the matter of a pinmaker's wife having pricked her fingers--marry, her
husband that made the weapon might have salved the wound.--And here is
this fantastic ape, pretty Mistress Marget, forsooth--such a beauty as
I could make of a Dutch doll, and as fantastic, and humorous, and
conceited, as if she were a duchess. I have seen her in the same day
as changeful as a marmozet and as stubborn as a mule.
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