"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 lives 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. "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. I always allows him an agreeable latitude to go where he pleases.
But I have had the advantage of keeping good company, and therefore----"

"Meklis," said Mrs. Chikno, "pray drop all that, sister; I believe I
have kept as good company as yourself; and with respect to that offer
with which you frequently fatigue those who keeps company with you, I
believe, after all, it was something in the roving and uncertificated
line."