 mean nothing again your ma-in-law
who has always treated me as a lady should though she is rather high I must say
not that I have any right to object to that particular, but when we come to Mrs.
Pipchinses and having them put over us and keeping guard at your pa's door like
crocodiles (only make us thankful that they lay no eggs!) we are a growing too
outrageous!«
    »Papa thinks well of Mrs. Pipchin, Susan,« returned Florence, »and has a
right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don't!«
    »Well Miss Floy,« returned the Nipper, »when you say don't, I never do I
hope but Mrs. Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss, and nothing
less.«
    Susan was unusually emphatic and destitute of punctuation in her discourse
on this night, which was the night of Mr. Dombey's being brought home, because,
having been sent down stairs by Florence to inquire after him, she had been
obliged to deliver her message to her mortal enemy Mrs. Pipchin; who, without
carrying it in to Mr. Dombey, had taken upon herself to return what Miss Nipper
called a huffish answer, on her own responsibility. This, Susan Nipper construed
into presumption on the part of that exemplary sufferer by the Peruvian mines,
and a deed of disparagement upon her young lady, that was not to be forgiven;
and so far her emphatic state was special. But she had been in a condition of
greatly increased suspicion and distrust, ever since the marriage; for, like
most persons of her quality of mind, who form a strong and sincere attachment to
one in the different station which Florence occupied, Susan was very jealous,
and her jealousy naturally attached to Edith, who divided her old empire, and
came between them. Proud and glad as Susan Nipper truly was, that her young
mistress should be advanced towards her proper place in the scene of her old
neglect, and that she should have her father's handsome wife for her companion
and protectress, she could not relinquish any part of her own dominion to the
handsome wife, without a grudge and a vague feeling of ill-will, for which she
did not fail to find a disinterested justification in her sharp perception of
the pride and passion of the lady's character. From the background to which she
had necessarily retired somewhat, since the marriage, Miss Nipper looked on,
therefore, at domestic affairs in general, with a resolute conviction that no
good would come of Mrs
