She walks all the morning sauntering about the shop with her arms
through her pocket-holes or stands gaping at the door-sill, and looking
at every person that passes by. She is continually asking me a thousand
frivolous questions about every customer that comes in and goes out; and
all the while that I am entering any thing in my day-book, she is
lolling over the counter, and staring at it, as if I was only scribbling
or drawing figures for her amusement. Sometimes, indeed, she will take a
needle; but as she always works at the door, or in the middle of the
shop, she has so many interruptions, that she is longer hemming a towel,
or darning a stocking, than I am in breaking forty loaves of sugar, and
making it up into pounds.
In the afternoons I am sure likewise to have her company, except she is
called upon by some of her acquaintance: and then, as we let out all the
upper part of our house, and have only a little room backwards for
ourselves, they either keep such a chattering, or else are calling out
every moment to me, that I cannot mind my business for them.
My wife, I am sure, might do all the little matters our family requires;
and I could wish that she would employ herself in them; but, instead of
that, we have a girl to do the work, and look after a little boy about
two years old, which, I may fairly say, is the mother's own child.
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