Madame Fribsby had, of course, taken the strongest interest in the
progress of Mr. Pen's love affair with Miss Fotheringay. She had been
over to Chatteris, and having seen that actress perform, had pronounced
that she was old and overrated: and had talked over Master Pen's passion
in her shop many and many a time to the half-dozen old maids, and old
women in male clothes, who are to be found in little country towns, and
who formed the genteel population of Clavering. Captain Glanders, H.P.,
had pronounced that Pen was going to be a devil of a fellow, and had
begun early: Mrs. Glanders had told him to check his horrid observations,
and to respect his own wife, if he pleased. She said it would be a lesson
to Helen for her pride and absurd infatuation about that boy. Mrs. Pybus
said many people were proud of very small things, and for her part, she
didn't know why an apothecary's wife should give herself such airs. Mrs.
Wapshot called her daughters away from that side of the street, one day
when Pen, on Rebecca, was stopping at the saddler's, to get a new lash to
his whip--one and all of these people had made visits of curiosity to
Fairoaks, and had tried to condole with the widow, or bring the subject
of the Fotheringay affair on the tapis, and had been severally checked by
the haughty reserve of Mrs.
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