 »you've so much beautiful linen. And
suppose you had had daughters! Then you must have divided it, when they were
married.«
    »Well, I don't say as I won't do it,« said Mrs. Pullet, »for now Tom's so
lucky, it's nothing but right his friends should look on him and help him.
There's the table-cloths I bought at your sale, Bessy; it was nothing but good
natur' o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying in the chest ever since. But I'm
not going to give Maggie any more o' my Indy muslin and things, if she's to go
into service again, when she might stay and keep me company, and do my sewing
for me, if she wasn't wanted at her brother's.«
    »Going into service,« was the expression by which the Dodson mind
represented to itself the position of teacher or governess, and Maggie's return
to that menial condition, now circumstances offered her more eligible prospects,
was likely to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lucy. Maggie in
her crude form, with her hair down her back, and altogether in a state of
dubious promise, was a most undesirable niece; but now she was capable of being
at once ornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle Glegg's
presence, over the tea and muffins.
    »Hegh, hegh!« said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting Maggie on the back,
»nonsense, nonsense! Don't let us hear of you taking a place again, Maggie. Why,
you must ha' picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at the bazaar: isn't there one
of 'em the right sort of article? Come, now?«
    »Mr. Glegg,« said his wife, with that shade of increased politeness in her
severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, »you'll excuse me, but
you're far too light for a man of your years. It's respect and duty to her
aunts, and the rest of her kin as are so good to her, should have kept my niece
from fixing about going away again without consulting us - not sweethearts, if
I'm to use such a word, though it was never heared in my family.«
    »Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em, then,
