Nor on market-day had she expressed any wish to go with him to Malsham to spend money on drapery; and he had an idea, sedulously cultivated by Mrs.
Tadman, that young women were perpetually wanting to spend money at drapers' shops.

Altogether, that first fortnight of his married life had been most satisfactory, and Mr.Whitelaw was inclined to regard matrimony as a wise and profitable institution.
The day's work was done, and Ellen was sitting with Mrs.Tadman in the every-day parlour, waiting for the return of her lord and master from Malsham.

It was not a market-day, but Stephen Whitelaw had announced at dinner-time that he had an appointment at Malsham, and had set out immediately after dinner in the chaise-cart, much to the wonderment of Mrs.Tadman, who was an inveterate gossip, and never easy until she arrived at the bottom of any small household mystery.

She wondered not a little also at Ellen's supreme indifference to her husband's proceedings.
"I can't for the life of me think what's taken him to Malsham to-day," she said, as she plied her rapid knitting-needles in the manufacture of a gray-worsted stocking.

"I haven't known him go to Malsham, except of a market-day, not once in a twelvemonth.