Customers came in, as the forenoon advanced, but rather slowly;
in some cases, too, it must be owned, with little satisfaction
either to themselves or Miss Hepzibah; nor, on the whole, with
an aggregate of very rich emolument to the till. A little girl,
sent by her mother to match a skein of cotton thread, of a peculiar
hue, took one that the near-sighted old lady pronounced extremely
like, but soon came running back, with a blunt and cross message,
that it would not do, and, besides, was very rotten! Then, there
was a pale, care-wrinkled woman, not old but haggard, and already
with streaks of gray among her hair, like silver ribbons; one of
those women, naturally delicate, whom you at once recognize as worn
to death by a brute--probably a drunken brute--of a husband, and
at least nine children. She wanted a few pounds of flour, and
offered the money, which the decayed gentlewoman silently rejected,
and gave the poor soul better measure than if she had taken it.
Shortly afterwards, a man in a blue cotton frock, much soiled, came
in and bought a pipe, filling the whole shop, meanwhile, with the
hot odor of strong drink, not only exhaled in the torrid atmosphere
of his breath, but oozing out of his entire system, like an
inflammable gas. It was impressed on Hepzibah's mind that this
was the husband of the care-wrinkled woman. He asked for a paper
of tobacco; and as she had neglected to provide herself with the
article, her brutal customer dashed down his newly-bought pipe and
left the shop, muttering some unintelligible words, which had the
tone and bitterness of a curse. Hereupon Hepzibah threw up her
eyes, unintentionally scowling in the face of Providence!

No less than five persons, during the forenoon, inquired for
ginger-beer, or root-beer, or any drink of a similar brewage,