This head-gear, in conjunction with a pair of gloves worn within doors, she seemed to consider as at once a kind of armour against misfortune (invariably assuming it when in low spirits or difficulties), and as a species of full dress.

It was therefore with some sinking of the spirit that her husband beheld her thus heroically attired, putting down her candle in the little hall, and coming down the doorsteps through the little front court to open the gate for him.
Something had gone wrong with the house-door, for R.Wilfer stopped on the steps, staring at it, and cried: 'Hal-loa ?' 'Yes,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'the man came himself with a pair of pincers, and took it off, and took it away.

He said that as he had no expectation of ever being paid for it, and as he had an order for another LADIES' SCHOOL door-plate, it was better (burnished up) for the interests of all parties.' 'Perhaps it was, my dear; what do you think ?' 'You are master here, R.W.,' returned his wife.

'It is as you think; not as I do.

Perhaps it might have been better if the man had taken the door too ?' 'My dear, we couldn't have done without the door.' 'Couldn't we ?' 'Why, my dear! Could we ?' 'It is as you think, R.W.; not as I do.' With those submissive words, the dutiful wife preceded him down a few stairs to a little basement front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in her shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing draughts with a younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of Wilfer.