“I have been thinking,” said he, “about what you told me”—this was a reference to an interview not recorded. “I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop should have been impertinent to you.”
“You need not be annoyed. The import of a word is not fixed. If anything annoying is said to me, I always ask myself what it means—not to me but to the speaker. Besides, as I have told you before, shop insolence is nothing.”
“You may be justified in not resenting it, but Mrs. Harrop cannot be excused. I am not surprised to find that she can use such language, but I am astonished that she should use it to you. It shows an utter lack of perception. Your Epictetus has been studied to some purpose.”
“I have quite forgotten him. I do not recollect books, but I never forget the lessons taught me by my own trade.”
“I have had my share: probably not in excess. It is difficult for anybody to know whether his suffering is excessive: there is no means of measuring it with that of others.”
“Have you no friends with whom you can share it?”
“I have known but one woman intimately, and she is now dead. I have known two or three men whom I esteemed, but close friendship between a woman and a man, unless he is her husband, as a rule is impossible.”
“I am certain of it. I am speaking now of a friendship which would justify a demand for sympathy with real sorrows.”
They continued their walk in silence for the next two or three minutes.
“We are now near the end of the lane. I must turn and go back.”
“Thank you: I should detain you: I have to make a call on business at the White House. Good morning.”
Dr. Midleton presently met Mrs. Jenkins of Deadman’s Rents, who was going to the White House to do a day’s washing. A few steps further he met Mr. Harrop in his gig, who overtook Mrs. Fairfax. Thus it came to pass that Deadman’s Rents and the High Street knew before nightfall that Dr. Midleton and Mrs. Fairfax had been seen on the Common that morning. Mrs. Jenkins protested, that “if she was to be burnt alive with fuz-faggits and brimstone, nothink but what she witnessed with her own eyes should pass her lips, whatsomever she might think, and although they were a-walkin’—him with his arm round her waist—she did _not_ see him a-kissin’ of her—how could she when they were a hundred yards off?”