Chikno.
"Is that young female your wife, young man?" said Mrs. Chikno.
"My wife?" said I.
"Yes, young man; your wife, your lawful certificated wife?"
"No," said I; "she is not my wife."
"Then I will not visit with her," said Mrs. Chikno; "I countenance
nothing in the roving line."
"What do you mean by the roving line?" I demanded.
"What do I mean by the roving line? Why, by it I mean such conduct
as is not tatcheno. When ryes and rawnies live together in
dingles, without being certificated, I call such behaviour being
tolerably deep in the roving line, everything savouring of which I
am determined not to sanctify. I have suffered too much by my own
certificated husband's outbreaks in that line to afford anything of
the kind the slightest shadow of countenance."
"It is hard that people may not live in dingles together without
being suspected of doing wrong," said I.
"So it is," said Mrs. Petulengro, interposing; "and, to tell you
the truth, I am altogether surprised at the illiberality of my
sister's remarks. I have often heard say, that it is in good
company--and I have kept good company in my time--that suspicion is
king's evidence of a narrow and uncultivated mind; on which account
I am suspicious of nobody, not even of my own husband, whom some
people would think I have a right to be suspicious of, seeing that
on his account I once refused a lord; but ask him whether I am
suspicious of him, and whether I seek to keep him close tied to my
apron-string; he will tell you nothing of the kind; but that, on
the contrary, I always allows him an agreeable latitude, permitting
him to go where he pleases, and to converse with any one to whose
manner of speaking he may take a fancy.
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