Mr. Pilgrim generally spoke with an intermittent kind of splutter; indeed, one of his patients had observed that it was a pity such a clever man had a ‘pediment’ in his speech.  But when he came to what he conceived the pith of his argument or the point of his joke, he mouthed out his words with slow emphasis; as a hen, when advertising her accouchement, passes at irregular intervals from pianissimo semiquavers to fortissimo crotchets.  He thought this speech of Mr. Ely’s particularly metaphysical and profound, and the more decisive of the question because it was a generality which represented no particulars to his mind.

‘Well, I don’t know about that,’ said Mrs. Hackit, who had always the courage of her opinion, ’but I know, some of our labourers and stockingers as used never to come to church, come to the cottage, and that’s better than never hearing anything good from week’s end to week’s end.  And there’s that Track Society’s as Mr. Barton has begun—­I’ve seen more o’ the poor people with going tracking, than all the time I’ve lived in the parish before.  And there’d need be something done among ’em; for the drinking at them Benefit Clubs is shameful.  There’s hardly a steady man or steady woman either, but what’s a dissenter.’

During this speech of Mrs. Hackit’s, Mr. Pilgrim had emitted a succession of little snorts, something like the treble grunts of a guinea-pig, which were always with him the sign of suppressed disapproval.  But he never contradicted Mrs. Hackit—­a woman whose ‘pot-luck’ was always to be relied on, and who on her side had unlimited reliance on bleeding, blistering, and draughts.

Mrs. Patten, however, felt equal disapprobation, and had no reasons for suppressing it.

‘Well,’ she remarked, ’I’ve heared of no good from interfering with one’s neighbours, poor or rich.  And I hate the sight o’ women going about trapesing from house to house in all weathers, wet or dry, and coming in with their petticoats dagged and their shoes all over mud.  Janet wanted to join in the tracking, but I told her I’d have nobody tracking out o’ my house; when I’m gone, she may do as she likes.  I never dagged my petticoats in my life, and I’ve no opinion o’ that sort o’ religion.’

‘No,’ said Mr. Hackit, who was fond of soothing the acerbities of the feminine mind with a jocose compliment, ’you held your petticoats so high, to show your tight ankles:  it isn’t everybody as likes to show her ankles.’

This joke met with general acceptance, even from the snubbed Janet, whose ankles were only tight in the sense of looking extremely squeezed by her boots.  But Janet seemed always to identify herself with her aunt’s personality, holding her own under protest.