The things we do!

But very
few were admitted to this mark of Miss Honeyman's confidence. If a family
did not go to church they were not in favour: if they went to a
Dissenting meeting she had no opinion of them at all. Once there came to
her house a quiet Staffordshire family who ate no meat on Fridays, and
whom Miss Honeyman pitied as belonging to the Romish superstition; but
when they were visited by two corpulent gentlemen in black, one of whom
wore a purple underwaistcoat, before whom the Staffordshire lady
absolutely sank down on her knees as he went into the drawing-room,--Miss
Honeyman sternly gave warning to these idolaters. She would have no
Jesuits in her premises. She showed Hannah the picture in Howell's
Medulla of the martyrs burning at Smithfield: who said, "Lord bless you,
mum," and hoped it was a long time ago. She called on the curate: and
many and many a time, for years after, pointed out to her friends, and
sometimes to her lodgers, the spot on the carpet where the poor benighted
creature had knelt down.


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