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46 not remove Mr. Chuzzlewit's distrust of us, and vindicate our own disinterestedness by—"

"If Mr. George Chuzzlewit has anything to say to me," interposed the strong-minded woman, sternly, "I beg him to speak out, like a man; and not to look at me and my daughters as if he could eat us."

"As to looking, I have heard it said, Mrs. Ned," returned Mr. George, angrily, "that a cat is free to contemplate a monarch; and therefore I hope I have some right, having been born a member of this family, to look at a person who only came into it by marriage. As to eating, I beg to say, whatever bitterness your jealousies and disappointed expectations may suggest to you, that I am not a cannibal, ma'am."

"I don't know that!" cried the strong-minded woman.

"At all events, if I was a cannibal," said Mr. George Chuzzlewit, greatly stimulated by this retort, "I think it would occur to me that a lady who had outlived three husbands and suffered so very little from their loss, must be most uncommonly tough."

The strong-minded woman immediately rose.

"And I will further add," said Mr. George, nodding his head violently at every second syllable; "naming no names, and therefore hurting nobody but those whose consciences tell them they are alluded to, that I think it would be much more decent and becoming, if those who hooked and crooked themselves into this family by getting on the blind side of some of its members before marriage, and manslaughtering them afterwards by crowing over them to that strong pitch that they were glad to die, would refrain from acting the part of vultures in regard to other members of this family who are living. I think it would be full as well, if not better, if those individuals would keep at home, contenting themselves with what they have got (luckily for them) already; instead of hovering about, and thrusting their fingers into, a family pie, which they flavor much more than enough, I can tell them, when they are fifty miles away."

"I might have been prepared for this!" cried the strong-minded woman, looking about her with a disdainful smile as she moved towards the door, followed by her three daughters: "indeed I was fully prepared for it, from the first. What else could I expect in such an atmosphere as this!"

"Don't direct your halfpay-officer's gaze at me, ma'am, if you please," interposed Miss Charity; "for I won't bear it."

This was a smart stab at a pension enjoyed by the strong-minded woman, during her second widowhood and before her last coverture. It told immensely.

"I passed from the memory of a grateful country, you very miserable minx," said Mrs. Ned, "when I entered this family; and I feel now, though I did not feel then, that it served me right, and that I lost my claim upon the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland when I so degraded myself. Now my dears, if you 're quite ready, and have sufficiently improved yourselves by taking to heart the genteel example of these two young ladies, I think we'll go. Mr. Pecksniff, we are very much obliged to you, really. We came to be entertained, and you