Considering her income, Totty had spent a great deal with Mrs. Bower, as you remember that lady once remarking.  Totty had a mind to live on luxuries; if she had not money enough for both bread and marmalade, she chose to have the marmalade alone; if she could not buy meat and pickles at the same time, she would have pickles and go without meat.  Marmalade and pickles she deemed the indispensables of life; if you could not get those—­well, it was no uncommon thing for poor creatures to be driven to the workhouse.  And the strange thing was that she looked so well on such diet.  Since the age of fifteen, when, in truth, she had been a little peaked and terribly tenuous at the waist, her personal appearance had steadily improved.  Her spirits had, by degrees, reached their present point of perpetual effervescence.  But Totty could be grave, and, if occasion were, sad.

She had been both grave and sad many a time since Thyrza had gone away.  She reproached herself in secret for her ‘nastiness’ to the little one at their last meeting, nastiness for which, as it proved, there was no justification whatever.  Now she was sad for poor old Mr. Boddy’s death.  She knew that it was another hard blow to Lydia, and, as you are aware, in her heart she respected Lydia profoundly.  Her sorrow led to that one practical result—­no more marmalade and pickles from Mrs. Bower.  The Bowers had behaved vilely; from every point of view, that was demonstrable.  Under the circumstances, they ought to have done without their rent, if need were, till Doomsday when, as Totty understood, all such arrears are made good to one with the utmost accuracy—­nay, with interest to boot.  She had not seen any reason for quarrelling with the Bowers on the score of the scandal they spread about Thyrza, since there really seemed ground for their stories; and it was right that ‘goings on’ of that kind should be put a stop to.  Totty would always—­that is, as often as she could—­be scrupulously just.  But this last affair was beyond endurance.  Not another penny went from her pocket to ’The Little Shop with the Large Heart.’

Her income this past year had fallen short of what she usually counted upon; not to a great extent, but the sum deducted had been wont to come to her as a pure grace, and she felt the loss of it.  Her uncle had omitted to send his usual present on her birthday.  Nor had he visited her to renew the proposal that she should surrender her liberty in return for being housed and dressed respectably.  What did this mean?  Had he—­it was probable enough—­grown tired of her, and said to himself that, as she wished to go her own way, go her own way she should?  He was a crusty old fellow.  Totty had often wondered that he ‘stood her cheek’ so good-humouredly.  Yet somehow she did not think it likely that he would break off intercourse with her in this abrupt way; no, it was not like him.  He would have, at all events, seen her for a last time, and have given her a well-understood last chance.  Was he dead?  Possible enough; his age must be nearer seventy than sixty.  If dead, well, there was an end of it.  No more birthday presents; no more offers to ’be made a lady of.’