She moves slowly and is always a little in liquor
besides being singularly dirty in her person. Her husband is like
unto her.
For all this they are hard-working industrious people, keep no
servant, pay cash for everything, are clearly going up rather than
down in the world and live well. She always shows us what she is
going to have for dinner and it is excellent--"And I made the
stuffing over night and the gravy first thing this morning." Each
time we go we find the house a little more done up. She dotes on Mr.
Hicks--we never go there without her wedding day being referred to.
She has earned her own living ever since she was ten years old, and
lived twenty-nine and a half years in the house from which Mr. Hicks
married her. "I am as happy," she said, "as the day is long." She
dearly loves a joke and a little flirtation. I always say something
perhaps a little impudently broad to her and she likes it extremely.
Last time she sailed smilingly out of the room, doubtless to tell Mr.
Hicks, and came back still smiling.
When we come we find her as though she had lien among the pots, but
as soon as she has given us our beer, she goes upstairs and puts on a
cap and a clean apron and washes her face--that is to say, she washes
a round piece in the middle of her face, leaving a great glory of
dirt showing all round it. It is plain the pair are respected by the
manner in which all who come in treat them.
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