'
'Read a thimble!' echoed Snitchey. 'What are you talking about,
young woman?'
Clemency nodded. 'And a nutmeg-grater.'
'Why, this is a lunatic! a subject for the Lord High Chancellor!'
said Snitchey, staring at her.
- 'If possessed of any property,' stipulated Craggs.
Grace, however, interposing, explained that each of the articles in
question bore an engraved motto, and so formed the pocket library
of Clemency Newcome, who was not much given to the study of books.
'Oh, that's it, is it, Miss Grace!' said Snitchey.
'Yes, yes. Ha, ha, ha! I thought our friend was an idiot. She
looks uncommonly like it,' he muttered, with a supercilious glance.
'And what does the thimble say, Mrs. Newcome?'
'I an't married, Mister,' observed Clemency.
'Well, Newcome. Will that do?' said the lawyer. 'What does the
thimble say, Newcome?'
How Clemency, before replying to this question, held one pocket
open, and looked down into its yawning depths for the thimble which
wasn't there, - and how she then held an opposite pocket open, and
seeming to descry it, like a pearl of great price, at the bottom,
cleared away such intervening obstacles as a handkerchief, an end
of wax candle, a flushed apple, an orange, a lucky penny, a cramp
bone, a padlock, a pair of scissors in a sheath more expressively
describable as promising young shears, a handful or so of loose
beads, several balls of cotton, a needle-case, a cabinet collection
of curl-papers, and a biscuit, all of which articles she entrusted
individually and separately to Britain to hold, - is of no
consequence.
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