In a very little time, so clever was she that she learned to
speak English fluently, although, as Mrs. Bingham at once noticed, the
French accent was very perceptible. It was a good, intelligible,
working theory, and that was all that was wanted. This was Mrs. Fairfax
so far as her female neighbours were concerned. To the men in
Langborough she was what she was to the women, but with a difference.
When she went to Mr. Sweeting's shop to order her groceries, Mr.
Sweeting, notwithstanding the canonical legend of her life, served her
himself, and was much entangled by her dark hair, and was drawn down by
it into a most polite bow. Mr. Cobb, who had a little cabin of an
office in his coal-yard, hastened back to it from superintending the
discharge of a lighter, when Mrs. Fairfax called to pay her little bill,
actually took off his hat, begged her to be seated, and hoped she did
not find the last lot of coals dusty. He was now unloading some of the
best Wallsend that ever came up the river, and would take care that the
next half ton should not have an ounce of small in it.
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