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156 what was proper; but, as Mrs Higgins observed in an undertone to Mrs. Parrot when they were coming out of church, "Her husband, who'd been born i' the parish, might ha' told her better." An unreadiness to put on black on all available occasions, or too great an alacrity in putting it off, argued, in Mrs Higgins's opinion, a dangerous levity of character, and an unnatural insensibility to the essential fitness of things.

"Some folks can't a-bear to put off their colours," she remarked; "but that was never the way i' my family. Why, Mrs Parrot, from the time I was married, till Mr. Higgins died, nine years ago come Candlemas, I niver was out o' black two year together!"

"Ah," said Mrs Parrot, who was conscious of inferiority in this respect, "there isn't many families as have had so many deaths as yours, Mrs Higgins."

Mrs Higgins, who was an elderly widow, "well left", reflected with complacency that Mrs Parrot's observation was no more than just, and that Mrs Jennings very likely belonged to a family which had had no funerals to speak of.

Even dirty Dame Fripp, who was a very rare