Clemency Newcome, in the meantime, having accomplished her mission
and lingered in the room until she had made herself a party to the
news, descended to the kitchen, where her coadjutor, Mr. Britain,
was regaling after supper, surrounded by such a plentiful
collection of bright pot-lids, well-scoured saucepans, burnished
dinner-covers, gleaming kettles, and other tokens of her
industrious habits, arranged upon the walls and shelves, that he
sat as in the centre of a hall of mirrors. The majority did not
give forth very flattering portraits of him, certainly; nor were
they by any means unanimous in their reflections; as some made him
very long-faced, others very broad-faced, some tolerably well-
looking, others vastly ill-looking, according to their several
manners of reflecting: which were as various, in respect of one
fact, as those of so many kinds of men. But they all agreed that
in the midst of them sat, quite at his ease, an individual with a
pipe in his mouth, and a jug of beer at his elbow, who nodded
condescendingly to Clemency, when she stationed herself at the same
table.
'Well, Clemmy,' said Britain, 'how are you by this time, and what's
the news?'
Clemency told him the news, which he received very graciously. A
gracious change had come over Benjamin from head to foot.
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