I always am a listener in such places as these--not to the narratives told by my neighbours' tongues, but by their faces--the advantage of which is, that whether I am in Row, Boulevard, Rialto, or Prado, they all speak the same language.

I may have acquired some skill in this practice through having been an ugly lonely woman for so many years, with nobody to give me information; a thing you will not consider strange when the parallel case is borne in mind,--how truly people who have no clocks will tell the time of day.' 'Ay, that they will,' said Mr.Swancourt corroboratively.

'I have known labouring men at Endelstow and other farms who had framed complete systems of observation for that purpose.

By means of shadows, winds, clouds, the movements of sheep and oxen, the singing of birds, the crowing of cocks, and a hundred other sights and sounds which people with watches in their pockets never know the existence of, they are able to pronounce within ten minutes of the hour almost at any required instant.

That reminds me of an old story which I'm afraid is too bad--too bad to repeat.' Here the vicar shook his head and laughed inwardly.
'Tell it--do!' said the ladies.
'I mustn't quite tell it.' 'That's absurd,' said Mrs.Swancourt.
'It was only about a man who, by the same careful system of observation, was known to deceive persons for more than two years into the belief that he kept a barometer by stealth, so exactly did he foretell all changes in the weather by the braying of his ass and the temper of his wife.' Elfride laughed.
'Exactly,' said Mrs.Swancourt.