There is a big chair with railed
back and sides on the hearth. On the floor is a drugget of thick
fibre matting. The only other piece of furniture is a clock with
a wooden dial about as large as the bottom of a washtub, the
weights, chains, and pendulum being of corresponding magnitude;
but the Bishop has long since abandoned the attempt to keep it
going. It hangs above the oak chest.
The kitchen is occupied at present by the Bishop's lady, Mrs
Bridgenorth, who is talking to Mr William Collins, the
greengrocer. He is in evening dress, though it is early forenoon.
Mrs Bridgenorth is a quiet happy-looking woman of fifty or
thereabouts, placid, gentle, and humorous, with delicate features
and fine grey hair with many white threads. She is dressed as for
some festivity; but she is taking things easily as she sits in
the big chair by the hearth, reading The Times.
Collins is an elderly man with a rather youthful waist. His
muttonchop whiskers have a coquettish touch of Dundreary at their
lower ends. He is an affable man, with those perfect manners
which can be acquired only in keeping a shop for the sale of
necessaries of life to ladies whose social position is so
unquestionable that they are not anxious about it.
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