“The more’s the reason,” returned Peggotty, “for saying that it won’t do. No! That it won’t do. No! No price could make it do. No!”⁠—I thought Peggotty would have thrown the candlestick away, she was so emphatic with it.

“How can you be so aggravating,” said my mother, shedding more tears than before, “as to talk in such an unjust manner! How can you go on as if it was all settled and arranged, Peggotty, when I tell you over and over again, you cruel thing, that beyond the commonest civilities nothing has passed! You talk of admiration. What am I to do? If people are so silly as to indulge the sentiment, is it my fault? What am I to do, I ask you? Would you wish me to shave my head and black my face, or disfigure myself with a burn, or a scald, or something of that sort? I dare say you would, Peggotty. I dare say you’d quite enjoy it.”

Peggotty seemed to take this aspersion very much to heart, I thought.