nd needles,
with their pints all ways. Don't mistake me, Miss Floy, I don't mean
nothing again your ma-in-law who has always treated me as a lady should
though she is rather high I must say not that I have any right to object
to that particular, but when we come to Mrs Pipchinses and having them
put over us and keeping guard at your Pa's door like crocodiles
(only make us thankful that they lay no eggs!) we are a growing too
outrageous!'

'Papa thinks well of Mrs Pipchin, Susan,' returned Florence, 'and has a
right to choose his housekeeper, you know. Pray don't!'

'Well Miss Floy,' returned the Nipper, 'when you say don't, I never do
I hope but Mrs Pipchin acts like early gooseberries upon me Miss, and
nothing less.'

Susan was unusually emphatic and destitute of punctuation in her
discourse on this night, which was the night of Mr Dombey's being
brought home, because, having been sent downstairs by Florence to
inquire after him, she had been obliged to deliver her message to her
mortal enemy Mrs Pipchin; who, without carrying it in to Mr Dombey, had
taken upon herself to return what Miss Nipper called a huffish answer,
on her own responsibility. This, Susan Nipper construed into presumption
on the part of that exemplary sufferer by the Peruvian mines, and a deed
of disparagement upon her young lady, that was not to be forgiven; and
so far her emphatic state was special. But she had been in a condition
of greatly increased suspicion and distrust, ever since the marriage;
for, like most persons of her quality of mind, who form a strong and
sincere attachment to one in the different station which Florence
occupied, Susan was very jealous, and her jealousy naturally attached to
Edith, who divided her old empire, and came between them. Proud and glad
as Susan Nipper truly was, that her young mistress should be advanced
towards her proper place in the scene of her old neglect, and that
she should have her father's handsome wife for her companion and
protectress, she could not relinquish any part of her own dominion to
the handsome wife, without a grudge and a vague feeling of ill-will,
for which she did not fail to find a disinterested justification in her
sharp perception of the pride and passion of the lady's character. From
the background to which she had necessarily retired somewhat, since
the marriage, Miss Nipper looked on, therefore, at domestic affairs
in general, with a resolute conviction that no good would com