Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she opened her eyes very wide when I had spoken, she did not look at me.
“O, his manners! won’t his manners do then?” asked Biddy, plucking a black-currant leaf.
“My dear Biddy, they do very well here—”
“O! they do very well here?” interrupted Biddy, looking closely at the leaf in her hand.
“Hear me out—but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would hardly do him justice.”
“And don’t you think he knows that?” asked Biddy.
It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most distant manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly—
“Biddy, what do you mean?”
Biddy, having rubbed the