She always wore short
sleeves, and always had, by some accident, grazed elbows, in which
she took so lively an interest, that she was continually trying to
turn them round and get impossible views of them. In general, a
little cap placed somewhere on her head; though it was rarely to be
met with in the place usually occupied in other subjects, by that
article of dress; but, from head to foot she was scrupulously
clean, and maintained a kind of dislocated tidiness. Indeed, her
laudable anxiety to be tidy and compact in her own conscience as
well as in the public eye, gave rise to one of her most startling
evolutions, which was to grasp herself sometimes by a sort of
wooden handle (part of her clothing, and familiarly called a busk),
and wrestle as it were with her garments, until they fell into a
symmetrical arrangement.
Such, in outward form and garb, was Clemency Newcome; who was
supposed to have unconsciously originated a corruption of her own
Christian name, from Clementina (but nobody knew, for the deaf old
mother, a very phenomenon of age, whom she had supported almost
from a child, was dead, and she had no other relation); who now
busied herself in preparing the table, and who stood, at intervals,
with her bare red arms crossed, rubbing her grazed elbows with
opposite hands, and staring at it very composedly, until she
suddenly remembered something else she wanted, and jogged off to
fetch it.
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