with great
confidence, for the damson pelisse suggested that Mrs. Bloss, at all
events, was not suffering under Mr. Gobler's complaint.

'You have quite incited my curiosity,' said Mrs. Bloss, as she rose to
depart. 'How I long to see him!'

'He generally comes down, once a week,' replied Mrs. Tibbs; 'I dare say
you'll see him on Sunday.' With this consolatory promise Mrs. Bloss was
obliged to be contented. She accordingly walked slowly down the stairs,
detailing her complaints all the way; and Mrs. Tibbs followed her,
uttering an exclamation of compassion at every step. James (who looked
very gritty, for he was cleaning the knives) fell up the kitchen-stairs,
and opened the street-door; and, after mutual farewells, Mrs. Bloss
slowly departed, down the shady side of the street.

It is almost superfluous to say, that the lady whom we have just shown
out at the street-door (and whom the two female servants are now
inspecting from the second-floor windows) was exceedingly vulgar,
ignorant, and selfish. Her deceased better-half had been an eminent
cork-cutter, in which capacity he had amassed a decent fortune. He had
no relative but his nephew, and no friend but his cook. The former had
the insolence one morning to ask for the loan of fifteen pounds; and, by
way of retaliation, he married the latter next day; he made a will
immediately afterwards, containing a burst of honest indignation against
his nephew (who supported himself and two sisters on 100_l._ a year), and
a bequest of his whole property to his wife. He felt ill after
breakfast, and died after dinner. There is a mantelpiece-looking tablet
in a civic parish church, setting forth his virtues, and deploring his
loss. He never dishonoured a bill, or gave away a halfpenny.

The relict and sole executrix of this noble-minded man was an odd mixture
of shrewdness and simplicity, liberality and meanness. Bred up as she
had been, she knew no mode of living so agreeable as a boarding-house:
and having nothing to do, and nothing to wish for, she naturally imagined
she must be ill--an impression which was most assiduously promoted by her
medical attendant, Dr. Wosky, and her handmaid Agnes: both of whom,
doubtless for good reasons, encouraged all her extravagant notions.

Since the catastrophe recorded in the last chapter, Mrs. Tibbs had been
very shy of young-lady boarders. Her present inmates were all lords of
the creation, and she availed herself of the o