malt would 'a made it worthy a'most to speak your health
in. Well, ma'am, a leetle drop in crystal for yourself, and then for
my business, which is to inquire after your poor dear health to-day.
Blooming as you are, ma'am, you must bear in mind that beauty is only
skin-deep, Mrs. Cloam; and the purtier a flower is, the more delicate it
grows. I've a-been a-thinking of you every night, ma'am, knowing how
you must 'a been put about and driven. The Admiral have gone down to the
village, and Miss Dolly to stare at the boats going out."

"Then I may speak a word for once at ease, Mr. Swipes, though the Lord
alone knows what a load is on my tongue. It requires a fine gardener,
being used to delicacy, to enter into half the worry we have to put up
with. Heroes of the Nile, indeed, and bucklers of the country! Why, he
could not buckle his own shoe, and Jenny Shanks had to do it for him.
Not that I blame him for having one arm, and a brave man he is to have
lost it, but that he might have said something about the things I got
up at a quarter to five every morning to make up for him. For cook is
no more than a smoke-jack, Mr. Swipes; if she keeps the joint turning,
that's as much as she can do."

"And a little too fond of good beer, I'm afeard," replied Mr. Swipes,
having emptied his pot. "Men's heads was made for it, but not women's,
till they come to superior stations in life. But, oh, Mrs. Cloam, what a
life we lead with the crotchets of they gentry!"

"It isn't that so much, Mr. Swipes, if only there was any way of giving
satisfaction. I wish everybody who is born to it to have the very best
of everything, likewise all who have fought up to it. But to make all
the things and have nothing made of them, whether indigestion or want
of appetite, turns one quite into the Negroes almost, that two or three
people go on with."

"I don't look at what he hath aten or left," Mr. Swipes made answer,
loftily; "that lieth between him and his own stommick. But what hath a'
left for me, ma'am? He hath looked out over the garden when he pleased,
and this time of year no weeds is up, and he don't know enough of things
to think nothing of them. When his chaise come down I was out by the
gate with a broom in my hand, and I pulled off my hat, but his eye never
seemed to lay hold of me."

"His eye lays hold of everything, whether he makes 'em feel or no.
One thing I'm sure of--he was quite up to Miss Dolly, and the way she
carries on with you