‘She’s headstrong, Mr Crumb,’ said Mrs Hurtle.

‘She is that, ma’am.  And it was along wi’ the baronite she went?’

‘It was so, Mr Crumb.’

’Baro-nite!  Well;—­perhaps I shall catch him some of these days;—­went to dinner wi’ him, did she?  Didn’t she have no dinner here?’

Then Mrs Pipkin spoke up with a keen sense of offence.  Ruby Ruggles had had as wholesome a dinner as any young woman in London,—­a bullock’s heart and potatoes,—­just as much as ever she had pleased to eat of it.  Mrs Pipkin could tell Mr Crumb that there was ’no starvation nor yet no stint in her house.’  John Crumb immediately produced a...