Assuredly no one had ever dared to tell her that her lodgings
were 'filthy'--any ordinary person who had ventured upon such an insult
would have been overwhelmed with clamorous retort. But Miss Rodney, with a
pleasant smile and nod, went her way, and Mrs. Turpin stood at the open
door gazing after her, bewildered 'twixt satisfaction and resentment.
She was an easy-going, wool-witted creature, not ill-disposed, but
sometimes mendacious and very indolent. Her life had always been what it
was now--one of slatternly comfort and daylong gossip, for she came of a
small tradesman's family, and had married an artisan who was always in
well-paid work. Her children were two daughters, who, at seventeen and
fifteen, remained in the house with her doing little or nothing, though
they were supposed to 'wait upon the lodgers.' For some months only two of
the four rooms Mrs. Turpin was able to let had been occupied, one by 'young
Mr. Rawcliffe,' always so called, though his age was nearly thirty, but, as
was well known, he belonged to the 'real gentry,' and Mrs. Turpin held him
in reverence on that account. No matter for his little weaknesses--of which
evil tongues, said Mrs. Turpin, of course made the most.
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