The same thing was asked, I believe, of the male inhabitants, who get
comforters, and also that they should drink seltzer-water whenever
their lower natures urged them to drink rum; but comforters are so
much smaller than petticoats that the men of Symford's sense of
justice rebelled, and since the only time they ever felt really warm
and happy and good was when they were drinking rum they decided that
on the whole it would be more in accordance with their benefactress's
wishes to go on doing it.
Lady Shuttleworth, the lady from whom these comforters and petticoats
proceeded, was a just woman who required no more of others than she
required of herself, and who was busy and kind, and, I am sure happy
and good, on cold water. But then she did not like rum; and I suppose
there are few things quite so easy as not to drink rum if you don't
like it. She lived at Symford Hall, two miles away in another fold of
the hills, and managed the estate of her son who was a minor--at this
time on the very verge of ceasing to be one--with great precision and
skill.
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