I saw it at two o'clock when I went
down to the kitchen and fried a bit for my darling child, and there's
pounds of it gone since then! There were five mince-pies! Mr. Pendennis!
you saw yourself there were five that went away from table yesterday--
where's the other two Maria? You leave the house this night, you
thieving, wicked wretch--and I'll thank you to come back to me afterwards
for a character. Thirteen servants have we had in nine months, Mr.
Pendennis, and this girl is the worst of them all, and the greatest liar
and the greatest thief."
At this charge the outraged Maria stood up in arms, and as the phrase is,
gave the Campaigner as good as she got. Go! wouldn't she go? Pay her her
wages, and let her go out of that ell upon hearth, was Maria's prayer.
"It isn't you, sir," she said, turning to Clive. "You are good enough,
and works hard enough to git the guineas which you give out to pay that
doctor; and she don't pay him--and I see five of them in her purse
wrapped up in paper, myself I did, and she abuses you to him--and I heard
her, and Jane Black, who was here before, told me she heard her.
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