the hot kitchen fire is in her eye. She considers that the privilege of inviting a friend to a meal occasionally, without additional charge (a privilege included in the terms on which she lets her lodgings), has been quite sufficiently exercised of late. The present week is yet but at Thursday, and on Monday Mr. Malone, the curate of Briarfield, came to breakfast and stayed dinner; on Tuesday Mr. Malone and Mr. Sweeting, of Nunnely, came to tea, remained to supper, occupied the spare bed, and favoured her with their company to breakfast on Wednesday morning: now, on Thursday, they are both here at dinner; and she is almost certain they will stay all night. “C’en est trop,” she would say, if she could speak French.
Mr. Sweeting is mincing the slice of roast beef on his plate, and complaining that it is very tough; Mr. Donne says the beer is flat. Ay! that is the worst of it. If they would only be civil, Mrs. Gale wouldn’t mind it so much; if they would only seem satisfied with what they get, she wouldn’t care, but “these young parsons is so high and so scornful, they set everybody beneath their fit; they treat her with less than civility, just because she doesn’t keep a servant, but does the work of the house herself, as her mother did afore her: then they are always speaking against Yorkshire ways and Yorkshire folk,” and by that very token Mrs. Gale does not believe one of them to be a real gentleman, or come of gentle kin. “The old parsons is worth the
