But his daughters, less tranquil-minded, burst into a torrent of
indignation. This came, they said, of cherishing such creatures as the
Pinches. This came of lowering themselves to their level. This came of
putting themselves in the humiliating position of seeming to know such
bold, audacious, cunning, dreadful girls as that. They had expected
this. They had predicted it to Mrs Todgers, as she (Todgers) could
depone, that very morning. To this, they added, that the owner of the
house, supposing them to be Miss Pinch's friends, had acted, in
their opinion, quite correctly, and had done no more than, under such
circumstances, might reasonably have been expected. To that they added
(with a trifling inconsistency), that he was a brute and a bear; and
then they merged into a flood of tears, which swept away all wandering
epithets before it.
Perhaps Miss Pinch was scarcely so much to blame in the matter as the
Seraph, who, immediately on the withdrawal of the visitors, had hastened
to report them at head-quarters, with a full account of their having
presumptuously charged her with the delivery of a message afterwards
consigned to the footman; which outrage, taken in conjunction with Mr
Pecksniff's unobtrusive remarks on the establishment, might possibly
have had some share in their dismissal.
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