certificated wife.'

'No,' said I, 'she is not my wife.'

'Then I will not visit her,' said Mrs. Chikno; 'I countenance nothing in
the roving line.'

'What do you mean by the roving line?' I demanded.

'What do I mean by the roving line? Why, by it I mean such conduct as is
not tatcheno. {31a} When ryes and rawnies {31b} lives together in
dingles, without being certificated, I calls such behaviour being
tolerably deep in the roving-line, everything savouring of which I am
determined not to sanctify. I have suffered too much by my own
certificated husband's outbreaks in that line to afford anything of the
kind the slightest shadow of countenance.'

'It is hard that people may not live in dingles together without being
suspected of doing wrong,' said I.

'So it is,' said Mrs. Petulengro, interposing; 'and, to tell you the
truth, I am altogether surprised at the illiberality of my sister's
remarks. I have often heard say, that is in good company--and I have
kept good company in my time--that suspicion is king's evidence of a
narrow and uncultivated mind, on which account I am suspicious of nobody,
not even of my own husband, whom some people would think I have a right
to be suspicious of, seeing that on his account I once refused a lord;
but ask him whether I am suspicious of him, and whether I seeks to keep
him close tied to my apron-string; he will tell you nothing of the kind;
but that, on the contrary, I always allows him an agreeable latitude,
permitting him to go where he pleases, and to converse with anyone to
whose manner of speaking he may take a fancy. But I have had the
advantage of keeping good company, and therefore--'

'Meklis,' {31c} said Mrs. Chikno, 'pray drop all that, sister; I believe
I have kept as good company as yourself, and with respect to that offer
with which you frequently fatigue those who keeps company with you, I
believe, after all, it was something in the roving and uncertificated
line.'

'In whatever line it was,' said Mrs. Petulengro, 'the offer was a good
one. The young duke--for he was not only a lord, but a duke too--offered
to keep me a fine carriage, and to make me his second wife; for it is
true that he had another, who was old and stout, though mighty rich, and
highly good-natured, so much so, indeed, that the young lord assured me
that she would have no manner of objection to the arrangement, more
especially if I would consent to live in the same house with her, bei