Chapter 16 - Page 2

usage, she had a perfect right to suppose she was not desired. It was
in this spirit, then, that she sat, conversing with Jenny, as the
maid of all work was called, the morning after the conversation
related in the last chapter, in her snug little parlour, sometimes
plying her needle, and oftener thrusting her head out of a window
which commanded a view of the principal street of the place, in order
to see what her neighbours might be about.

"This is a most extraordinary course Mr. Effingham has taken
concerning the Point," said Mrs. Abbott, "and I _do_ hope the people
will bring him to his senses. Why, Jenny, the public has used that
place ever since I can remember, and I have now lived in Templeton
quite fifteen months.--What _can_ induce Mr. Howel to go so often to
that barber's shop, which stands directly opposite the parlour
windows of Mrs. Bennett--one would think the man was all beard."

"I suppose Mr. Howel gets shaved sometimes," said the logical Jenny.

"Not he; or if he does, no decent man would think of posting himself
before a lady's window to do such a thing.--Orlando Furioso," calling
to her eldest son, a boy of eleven, "run over to Mr. Jones's store,
and listen to what the people are talking about, and bring me back
the news, as soon as any thing worth hearing drops from any body; and
stop as you come back, my son, and borrow neighbour Brown's gridiron.
Jenny, it is most time to think of putting over the potatoes."

"Ma'--" cried Orlando Furioso, from the front door, Mrs. Abbott being
very rigid in requiring that all her children should call her 'ma','
being so much behind the age as actually not to know that 'mother'
had got to be much the genteeler term of the two; "Ma'," roared
Orlando Furioso, "suppose there is no news at Mr. Jones's store?"

"Then go to the nearest tavern; something must be stirring this fine
morning, and I'm dying to know what it can possibly be. Mind you
bring something besides the gridiron back with you. Hurry, or never
come home again as long as you live! As I was saying, Jenny, the
right of the public, which is our right, for we are a part of the
public, to this Point, is as clear as day, and I am only astonished
at the impudence of Mr. Effingham in pretending to deny it. I dare
say his French daughter has put him up to it. They say she is
monstrous arrogant!"

"Is Eve Effingham, French," said Jenny, studiously avoiding any of
the usual terms of civility and propriety, by way of showing her
breeding--"well, I had always thought her nothing but Templeton
born!"

"What signifies where a person was born? where they _live_, is the