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does Mrs. Marmalade contrive to stay here so long? She is neither plain nor surly, I'm sure.

Oh! but she has one great advantage over me.

What is that?

He sees she is a fool; and certes, she is the greatest fool that ever had wit enough to keep account of household linen, and overlook the making of pickles and preserves.

Yes, for certain, she has a great power of words on every occasion, and few of them to the purpose. How has he patience to hear her?

I'll tell you how: whenever he questions her about any mischance in the family, he knows very well that all she tells him, in the first place, is false, but that it will soon be contradicted as she goes on; and that what she tells him last will be within a trifle of the truth. Besides, he is amused with her, and she is related to his old nurse. For he is really a kind-hearted man, for all his odd notions and vagaries.