A loose frock-coat
of a coarse white cloth, and fastened by one button round his
waist, completed his habiliments, with the addition of the
covering to his head, a high-crowned dark-brown hat, which
relieved his complexion, and heightened the effect of his
mischievous blue eye.
"Well, you need not be so fierce, Mother Carey," said the
youth with an affected air of deprecation.
"Don't mother me," said the jolly widow with a kindling eye;
"go to your own mother, who is dying in a back cellar without
a winder, while you've got lodgings in a two pair."
"Dying; she's only drunk," said the youth.
"And if she is only drunk," rejoined Mrs Carey in a passion,
"what makes her drink but toil; working from five o'clock in
the morning to seven o'clock at night, and for the like of
such as you."
"That's a good one," said the youth; "I should like to know
what my mother ever did for me, but give me treacle and
laudanum when I was a babby to stop my tongue and fill my
stomach; by the token of which, as my gal says, she stunted
the growth of the prettiest figure in all Mowbray." And here
the youth drew himself up, and thrust his hands in the side
pockets of his pea-jacket.
"Well, I never," said Mrs Carey.
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