In the morning we assembled at breakfast--a note lay on the table,
addressed--"Mrs. Scropps, Budge Row." The girls, one after the other,
took it up, read the superscription, and laid it down again. A visiter
was announced--a neighbour and kind friend, a man of wealth and
importance--what were his first words?--they were the first I had heard
from a stranger since my job,--"How are you, Scropps, done up, eh?"
Scropps! no obsequiousness, no deference, no respect;--no "my lord, I
hope your lordship passed an agreeable night--and how is her ladyship
and your lordship's amiable daughters?"--not a bit of it--"How's Mrs. S.
and the _gals_?" This was quite natural, all as it _had_ been, all
perhaps as it should be--but how unlike what it _was_, only one day
before! The very servants, who, when amidst the strapping, stall-fed,
gold-laced lacqueys of the Mansion House, (transferred with the chairs
and tables from one Lord Mayor to another) dared not speak nor look, nor
say their lives were their own, strutted about the house, and banged the
doors, and talked of their "_Missis_," as if she had been an apple
woman.
So much for domestic miseries;--I went out--I was shoved about in
Cheapside in the most remorseless manner; my right eye had a narrow
escape of being poked out by the tray of a brawny butcher's boy, who,
when I civilly remonstrated, turned round, and said, "Vy, I say, who are
_you_, I vonder, as is so partiklar about your _hysight_.
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