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BERKELEY \ 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 Case ,3.. 
 
 Shelf «S» 
 
 'So../, 
 
WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 HOW TO GET MARRIED! 
 
 Melon. Now are there no means of finding the girl 
 
 a good husband ? 
 
 Fi/OR. I can't tell; 'tis said the creature every day 
 
 becomes a greater scarcity." 
 
 Bubbles of the Day. 
 
BY THE AUTHOR OF "WHOM TO MARRY, &c." 
 Illustrated by George Cruikshank. 
 
 Price 7s., neatly bound in cloth, 
 THE 
 
 GREATEST PLAGUE OF LIFE:" 
 
 OR 
 OF 
 
 A LADY IN SEARCH OF A GOOD SERVANT. 
 
 BY 
 
 ONE WHO HAS BEEN 
 "NEARLY WORRIED TO DEATH." 
 
 WitJi Illustrations by George Cruikshank. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM REVIEWS. 
 
 " Its pages are rich in materials for laughter, and in selecting specimens, choice 
 is perplexed. The work abounds in humour. The malapropisms, verbal and intel- 
 lectual, of Mrs. Sk — n— st— n are full of raciness of character, and the details are 
 rich in invention and clever caricature ; the latter is helped by twelve admirable 
 illustrations from the pencil of Geobge Cruikshank." — Athenteum. 
 
 " However ludicrous and characteristic the incidents, the style of the entire 
 narrative is equally so. Nothing can be more deliciously slipshod, fussy, and self- 
 satisfied. Never was such a cluster of specimens of the stereotyped phraseology of 
 gossiping life. The very epigraphs belong to this class. George Cruikshank really 
 does illustrate this very curious book." — Northampton Mercury. 
 
 "The narrative is thoroughly natural, and the humour exquisite. The illustra- 
 tions are by George Cruikshank, and in his happiest style. Paradoxical as it may 
 sound, the Greatest Plague will be a prodigious favourite with the public." — 
 Western Luminary. 
 
 " Nothing can exceed the life-like smartness of this admirable picture of domestic 
 miseries." — Illustrated London Neu-s. 
 
: Q^orx^ G-vc^ksXW^O-c 
 
 >^^z^ i^yuz*^// , / 
 
WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 HOW TO GET MARRIED! 
 
 OR, 
 
 W>z gfttentures of a Hafcg 
 IN SEARCH OF A GOOD HUSBAND. 
 
 EDITED BY THE BROTHERS MAYHEW. 
 tllustvatctt in> George Cnuksljanfe. 
 
 LONDON: DAVID* BOG UE, 86, FLEET STREET. 
 
WW 
 
 TO 
 
 JOSHUA MAYHEW, 
 
 THIS WORK IS DEDICATED, 
 
 WITH ALL FILIAL LOVE AND RESPECT, 
 
 THE EDITORS. 
 
 245 
 
LIST OF PLATES. 
 
 
 
 The Young Maid and her Pets Frontispiece, 
 
 Philip's Hiding Place page 39 
 
 Blind Man's Buff 42 
 
 Angling — Landing tour Fish 50 
 
 Deer Stalking 63 
 
 Lord Fortiwinx in an awkward Predicament 135 
 
 A Lady of considerable Attractions 164 
 
 Introduction to the Officer : . . 167 
 
 Mystery and Crockery 176 
 
 Choosing the Widow's Cap 197 
 
 The Declaration 265 
 
 The Wedding 268 
 
WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 AND 
 
 HOW TO GET MARRIED! 
 
 OR, 
 
 W^z gftibentures of a ILafcg 
 IN SEARCH OF A GOOD HUSBAND. 
 
 OFFER THE FIRST. 
 
 WHICH CERTAINLY WAS NOT WHAT — WITH MY IMPROVED VIEWS OF 
 LIFE — I SHOULD NOW DESIGNATE AN EXCELLENT OFFER, FOR I 
 REALLY DON'T BELIEVE THAT THE POOR, POOR WRETCH OF A 
 MAN HAD SIXPENCE IN THE WORLD, BEYOND WHAT HE GOT BY 
 THE PERSPIRATION OF HIS BROW; STILL AS HE WAS MY FIRST 
 LOVE, AND CERTAINLY REMARKABLY FOND OF ME, PERHAPS IT IS 
 BUT RIGHT THAT I SHOULD BEGIN THIS " petite Mstoire " WITH 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THAT INSINUATING VdUt-rien ; ESPECIALLY AS 
 IT WILL SHOW THE GENTLE READER WHAT A SILLY, SILLY, 
 TRUTHFUL, DISINTERESTED LITTLE PUSS I WAS AT " SWEET 
 SIXTEEN."' 
 
 I don't think I shall ever, ever forget Tuesday, the 3rd of 
 July, 1 832. All other thoughts may be erased from my memory 
 — strong and fine, as I'm told it naturally is — but the recollec- 
 tion of that horrid, horrid Tuesday, the 3rd of July, 1832, will, 
 I'm sure, remain with me to my dying hour. Indeed, so lasting 
 an impression has it made upon me, that I am as certain, as 
 certain can be, that if, after I am snatched from this poor, 
 dear, empty world, any one would take the trouble to examine 
 my, alas! too susceptible heart, they would find " Tuesday, 
 the 3rd of July, 1832," engraven upon it by the sharp 
 chisel of care, and the heavy mallet of affliction. Ha — ah ! 
 Tuesday, the 3rd of July. 1832, was as angelic an afternoon 
 as I ever remembered to have seen in the whole course of my 
 
 B 
 
2 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 chequered life. Oh ! the sky was such a sweet, clear blue, 
 you don't know, with only two or three little darlings of 
 white clouds floating about, like so many ducks of marabout 
 feathers; and my pretty little dickey was frisking about in his 
 bright brass-wire cage, and whistling away more sweetly, if 
 possible, than that charming Herr Von Joel at an evening 
 party — (by-the-bye, what a sad, sad pity it is he has lost 
 that front tooth of his). I declare, too, if the beautiful boxes 
 of mignionette we had growing outside our parlor-windows 
 didn't smell more divinely than the inside of that darling 
 Delcroix's shop. As for my heavenly gold fish, positively it 
 was quite beautiful to see the dear little pets shining in the 
 sun as if they were treble-gilt, and sporting in upwards of a 
 gallon of their native element, while they kept swimming 
 round and round their crystal prison, as though they were 
 waltzing away, and tripping it on the light fantastic fin, for 
 very joy. Oh! it was a perfect love of an afternoon, on that 
 horrid, horrid Tuesday, the 3rd of July, 1832. 
 
 The beautiful ormolu clock, which stood in the centre of 
 our mantel-piece, and which was a faithful representation of 
 a poor old black porter — without so much as a shoe to his 
 foot, or a shirt to cover his dear dark skin, and, indeed, no- 
 thing but a pair of gilt trowsers, and a gold hat, to protect 
 him from the inclemency of the weather — walking away with 
 our eight-day clock, done up in a superbly lacquered bundle 
 at his back, and a magnificent brass cane in his hand — Well! 
 this beautiful ormolu time-piece had only just chimed half- 
 past one, and I was sitting on a sweet little " prie dieu" near 
 the window, dressed for our drawing lesson, in a pet of a 
 plum -coloured silk frock, with the corsage high, and quite 
 plain, and a broad satin sash with a large bow behind, and 
 ends at least a yard long, which mamma said became me ex- 
 tremely — my luxuriant head of hair, too (which Monsieur 
 Davoren, my coiffeur, has often told me w*s " line chevelure 
 seraphiqut ;"), was hanging all down my back, and over my 
 shoulders in rich raven ringlets — and my cheeks (which 
 Signor Baretti, my Italian master, used over and over again 
 to declare, in his dear broken English, " Vare like ze side 
 of ze peeshe vat is next to ze sun") were not only tinged with 
 the roseate hue of youthful health, but had borrowed even a 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 3 
 
 higher flush from the crimson cloth window curtains near 
 which I had placed myself — as I was saying, then, I was, on 
 that horrid, horrid Tuesday, the 3rd of July, 1832, sitting in 
 our parlor, working one of the handsomest brigands, I think, 
 I ever remember to have seen in all my days, and was just 
 putting in the love's darling tiddy moustachios with some 
 black Berlin wool, when who should come bounding into the 
 room — like a silly, artless, impulsive thing as she is — but little 
 sister Fan, with her eyes streaming with tears, and sobbing 
 out, " Oh, Lotty, dear, M r hat do you think — boo-oo — Ma 
 says — boo-oo — that we are to go up in our bed-rooms, and 
 not let her see our faces till Pa comes home to dinner — 
 boo-oo — oo" 
 
 " What on earth have you been doing, then? I declare, 
 if I'm not always getting punished through you, you stupid, 
 stupid child !" I exclaimed, not a little vexed at being obliged 
 to go and pass the whole of such a beautiful afternoon as it 
 was on that horrid 3rd of July, 1832, up in that poking back 
 bedroom of ours, with nothing but the stables to look out upon. 
 
 "I'm no more a child than you are, Miss Charlotte; for 
 if it comes to that, you know Ma says you're not yet old 
 enough yourself to turn up your back hair," answered the 
 pert, passionate little puss. 
 
 "Let my back hair alone if you please, miss!" I replied, 
 tossing my front ringlet over my left shoulder; " and tell me 
 what on earth you have been doing now, that I should be 
 locked up again for you." 
 
 " I've been doing nothing, I'm sure ; and it's a great 
 shame!" Fanny answered, crying; "but Ma's got a spite 
 against me, and is always scolding me for doing nothing; 
 and when Pa comes home, I declare, I'll tell him how I'm 
 treated — see if I don't." 
 
 " Don't tell me, miss; you must have been doing some- 
 thing!" I said, getting quite in a puff with that wicked little 
 story of a sister of mine. " Come, tell me, now, like a good 
 girl, what you've been at; and then I'll go up to Ma, and kiss 
 her, and say you're sorry for it, and have promised never to 
 do it again, if she'll let us off this time." 
 
 " How you do teaze, Charlotte !" she answered ; " I tell 
 you again and again I've been doing nothing, but none of 
 
 b 2 
 
4 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 you will believe me; and, I declare. I'll run away if it goes on 
 much longer! Ma says I'm a wicked, good-for-nothing girl, 
 and I ought to be ashamed of myself — boo-oo," she con- 
 tinued, bursting out into a fresh flood of tears. 
 
 " And so you are, and so you ought, no doubt," I replied. 
 " If you'd only tell the truth, like a good child. I'm sure I 
 wouldn't go and get you into disgrace, if Fd done any tiling." 
 
 " But Ma says you're just as bad as I am; and she doesn't 
 know what will become of us both if we go on in the way we 
 do." 
 
 " Well, I do like that extremely!" I had only just time to 
 reply, when who should march into the room but Mamma her- 
 self, looking as cross as two sticks. 
 
 " Why aint you in your room, Miss Fanny, as I ordered 
 you, ten minutes ago, at least?" she said; "Get up stairs 
 with you directly. And you too, Miss Lotty ; for I don't know 
 which is the worst of the pair of you. Oh you naughty, bad, 
 bad, deceitful children!" 
 
 "But what is it all about, Mamma?" I replied, bursting 
 into tears, and going up to throw my arms round her neck; 
 " do tell us, there's a dear." 
 
 " Go along with you, miss," she answered; "I don't want 
 to kiss any such wicked things as you. Your father shall tell 
 you ail about it when he comes home." 
 
 " But, please Ma," I said, " it's drawing day, and Mr. Lacy 
 comes at two. Aint we to take our lesson first?" 
 
 "You'll have no lessons to-day, I can assure you," she re- 
 plied, "excepting a very strong one that your father will 
 read you this evening, and one that you won't forget for a 
 long time, I'll take good care." 
 
 After this she marshalled Fanny and me and my brigand 
 up to our bed-rooms; and although ail the way one of us 
 kept asking her, "What it was all for?" and the other one, 
 "What we had been doing?" still she only told us "not to 
 speak to her;" and directly she had seen us safe into the 
 room, she turned the key of the door, and went down stairs. 
 
 As soon as we had had our cry out, and I had nearly spoilt 
 the head of my dear little brigandey by my tears continually 
 falling right on his face, as I sat there stitching and sobbing 
 away — I and Fanny kissed each other, and having made it all 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 5 
 
 up, set to work puzzling our poor little wits to find out what 
 nil the hubbub could be about. First, I thought it was because 
 I had allowed Fanny to keep a nasty little puppy that she 
 had found in the enclosure of our Crescent, in our ottoman 
 dirty clothes box, without saying a word to Ma about it. Then 
 Fanny fancied it was because I had been painting a number 
 of the beautiful lithograph title-pages to the songs in our 
 music-book; and then it struck me it must be because I had 
 been foolish enough to help that great big baby Fanny to 
 unpick her old light green silk spencer, and make a new frock 
 out of it for her doll. But, of course, Miss clever Fan would 
 have it, our Mary had been and told Ma all about my getting 
 her to fetch me from our circulating library that dear dear 
 Mr. Hugo's darling Hunchback, and that I had been reading 
 it in bed. However, after all, we couldn't make out what it 
 was — it might be any one of these, it might be none of them. 
 All that we knew positively was, that Mamma was in our 
 room, when Fanny went up to her to ask whether, as she 
 had done practising, she might go out and walk in the en- 
 closure till Mr. Lacy came for the drawing lesson; and then 
 Ma declared she was astonished Fanny dare show her face, 
 and went on saying ever so many cruel things to her just as 
 Fan had told me in the parlor. 
 
 So there we sat upon thorns in a shocking fright, fancying 
 every footstep we heard coming up stairs was Pa's, and re- 
 solving if he was very cross with us, that we would both of us 
 run away, and hire a lodging, and take in needle-work, and 
 go partners together; and when we had got enough money, we 
 would go down into the country, and take a pretty little 
 cottage, with roses climbing up to our bed-room windows, 
 and never marry, but always live together like two affec- 
 tionate sisters as we were, and a couple of little romantic 
 stupids into the bargain. 
 
 About six o'clock, as near as we could judge, we heard a 
 double knock at the street-door, and made certain it was 
 Pa's. Sure enough so it was; for in about a quarter of an 
 hour up came Mary, and having unlocked the door of our 
 room, said "Please, Miss Fanny, master wants the key of 
 your desk ;" when all we could learn from her was, that Pa was 
 looking very black indeed, and that he and Ma had been 
 
6 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 closeted together in the library ever since he had come home, 
 and that dinner had been ordered to be put back half an 
 hour at least. All this put us in a greater fright than ever; 
 and when I questioned Fanny about what she had got in her 
 desk that they could want to see, the poor thing began crying 
 again as if her heart would break, and said she supposed it 
 must be the frontispiece to last year's Keepsake, that she 
 had dropped some tallow upon as she was reading it one 
 night in her room, and then torn from the book and put in 
 her desk to prevent it being found out. 
 
 But, alas, it was something more serious than this, as we 
 soon learnt to our cost; for in about five minutes more, Mary 
 came up again and said her master wanted to speak with 
 Miss Fanny alone in the library. The poor little dear went 
 down stairs trembling and sobbing away, so that I couldn't 
 help thinking, that, notwithstanding all her protestations to 
 the contrary, she had been doing something in her giddy, 
 thoughtless way, that she hadn't the heart to acknowledge 
 even to me. 
 
 After Fanny had left, I was all on tip-toe to know what it 
 could be about, and kept fidgeting on my chair. Then I 
 went and stood at the top of the stairs to try if I could over- 
 hear anything, but of course that was quite impossible, so 
 high up as I was; so that I declare if I wasn't drawn down 
 stairs, one step at a time, until at last I positively found 
 myself outside the library door, with my ear as close to it 
 as possible, listening to what was going on within. 
 
 First of all, I thought I heard Pa say something about a 
 brooch with — I fancied I could catch — a portrait of Mr. 
 Lacy, our drawing-master set in it. But Pa was speaking in 
 such a low solemn tone, and the door was so thick, that I felt 
 assured I must be mistaken. 
 
 Then Ma said, very loud, " To think of a girl at her age 
 — only fifteen, — receiving a pack of love-tokens from a pauper 
 like that. What on earth, miss, do you expect will " 
 
 But here Papa began speaking at the same time, which 
 prevented my hearing what either of them said. When 
 Mamma was silent, I distinctly heard my father telling her 
 " that was not the way to bring the child to a sense of her 
 proper conduct." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 7 
 
 After this, I heard poor little Fan declare, between her sobs, 
 " upon her word and honour, she knew nothing at all about 
 the brooch," — (Good heavens! then, I was not mistaken — it 
 was a brooch) — " and if she was to be locked up for a 
 twelvemonth, she had never seen it before that very moment 
 — indeed, indeed, she hadn't." 
 
 Whereupon, Mamma broke in, saying, " her bare-faced 
 falsehoods only made the matter ten times worse;" adding, 
 "I suppose you would wish to make us believe that it's your 
 dear, good sister Lotty's — you wicked, wicked girl." (I felt 
 the blood rush scalding into my cheeks on hearing my name 
 introduced.) 
 
 Then Papa asked Fanny "if she in any way meant to imply 
 it belonged to me," adding something that nearly escaped me; 
 for all I could catch was the end of his speech, which was 
 " to beware how she told him a lie." 
 
 Upon this Fanny stopped crying, and answered, " I don't 
 mean to say it is sister Lotty's, but it isn't mine." 
 
 Here they both of them began lecturing poor Fanny to- 
 gether again; and as Ma spoke loudest, I could only catch what 
 fell from her, which was "that Fanny ought to be ashamed of 
 herself to stand there and say such things; for to declare it 
 wasn't hers, was as much as to say it was mine; and did 
 Fanny think she could ever believe such a good girl as I was 
 would be guilty of such wickedness and deceit; for my only 
 fault was, I encouraged her too much in her bad, bad ways, I 
 never got into disgrace except through shielding her," and many 
 other things, for they kept on talking for about ten minutes. 
 
 Then there was a dead silence, with the exception of poor 
 Fan's hysterical sobs. At last Papa said, in a loud, grave 
 tone, " that after all Mamma had told him, as well as from 
 Fanny's manner, he felt convinced Fanny was persisting in 
 a wicked untruth, which made the black affair appear ten 
 times blacker in his eyes, and he should feel it his duty to 
 have her confined to her room, and make her take all her 
 meals up there by herself, nor would she be permitted to share 
 in any of the pleasures or amusements to which he might 
 treat me; and this should continue until such time as he 
 saw she was heartily sorry and ashamed of what she had done, 
 and he felt convinced that she was an altered girl." 
 
8 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 I was ready to faint; but hearing something in the room 
 drop heavily on the floor, I put my eye to the keyhole, and 
 there I saw poor dear little Fan down on both her knees at 
 Papa's feet, her eyes and cheeks almost blood-red with crying, 
 and her hands clasped up in the air before him. Then I 
 heard her say, in a tone that I had never heard her speak 
 in before, " God, who knows everything, knows I never saw 
 that brooch until this evening. Upon my word and honour 
 — indeed, indeed, dear father, I never did." 
 
 Poor dear little sister! 
 
 I jumped up, and turning the handle, stepped into the room, 
 saying, " Fanny speaks only the truth; that brooch is mine, 
 father." Then my courage left me, and my head dropped 
 upon my breast, while little impulsive Fan, directly she saw 
 me, and heard what I said, ran to me, and throwing her arms 
 round my neck, wept hysterically on my bosom. 
 
 Mamma was so astonished at the suddenness of my confes- 
 sion, that she did not say a word; but father, stepping up to 
 me, took me kindly by the hand, saying, " Charlotte, I hardly 
 know whether I am glad or sorry to hear you say this. I am glad 
 to find one of my girls noble enough to confess to a fault, in 
 order to save her sister from the blame of it; but I am sorry 
 to learn that my eldest child should have been artful and im- 
 prudent enough to have received love tokens from any man, 
 unknown to both of her parents, and especially when her very 
 secrecy shows that she must have been aware there was 
 something disgraceful in the connexion. So truthfully, though, 
 have you acted this evening, that I will promise you to say 
 no more about the thoughtlessness — to call it by no harsher 
 name — of your previous conduct, if you will give me your 
 pledge that you will never in any way countenance the ad- 
 dresses of Mr. Lacy, from this time forth." 
 
 My father looked at me, waiting for my answer, but I said 
 not a word. 
 
 " Charlotte," he continued, " what am I to infer from this 
 silence?" and he stopped inquiringly again. 
 
 Still I said not a word. 
 
 " Then you icill not give me the promise I ask!" he added, 
 in a half-angry tone. 
 
 " I cannot!" was all I could stammer out. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. V 
 
 "You cannot, eh? Hem! Well, then, simpleton!" lie re- 
 turned, " since matters seem to have gone thus far, I must 
 take means to make you. So before another week is over 
 your head, I will have removed you to a place, where at least 
 it will be impossible for you to hold any further communion 
 with this scoundrel, who has taught my daughter, for the first 
 time, to fly in the face of her father." 
 
 " Mr. Lacy is no scoundrel, sir!" I said, firing at the idea 
 of such a term being applied to my own dear Herbert. 
 
 " There, go back to your room, Charlotte," he answered, 
 coolly; " and never come into my presence again until you 
 can learn to speak to your father as a friend." 
 
 What occurred afterwards I don't know. Fanny told me 
 I was carried fainting up stairs. When I came to, I found 
 myself lying on my bed, with my things all loosened behind, 
 and the little packet of Herbert's letters, that I always car- 
 ried in my bosom — gone ! 
 
 All that dreadful, dreadful night through I tossed about and 
 wept, till my brain seemed to be burning hot, and I hardly 
 knew what I did or thought. Even Fanny was taken away 
 from me to sleep in a different room; so that it seemed as if 
 I had nothing left but death to console me. As long as there 
 was any candle left, I sat kissing and kissing and crying over 
 a little lock which I had cut from dear Herbert's hair, and 
 which as yet had escaped them; and when the light had died 
 out, I threw myself on the bed, dressed as I was, and burying 
 my face in the pillow, prayed Heaven to take mercy on my 
 sufferings, and either to soften my father's heart, or else to 
 help me to fly to Herbert's protection. 
 
 When the morning, that I had been praying for, came, the 
 light was so painful to my eyes that I was obliged to keep 
 them shut, for I hadn't strength to leave my bed and close 
 the shutters, and I felt almost mad for a drop of water. My 
 head, too, ached as if my brain was cramped within my skull; 
 while strange queer faces seemed to be moving about the 
 room, though I had still sense enough left to know they 
 were mere visions. 
 
 The sequel was a blank to me. 
 
 The next thing I remembered was that little Fan, watch- 
 ing beside me; that my room was all dark, and that I could 
 
10 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 just distinguish Mamma standing at the little table covered 
 with phials and glasses which was at my bedside. Round 
 each arm I had a bandage, while my beautiful long hair had 
 been cut short, and my head was covered with nice cold, wet 
 cloths. 
 
 All seemed to me as if I had been in a long, dreamless 
 sleep; but I felt that I had been very ill; while from the 
 numbness of my limbs, I knew that I had been confined to 
 my bed for a considerable period. It took many days before 
 I could collect my thoughts sufficiently to remember the 
 cause of my illness. Mamma and Fan and the servants were 
 all extremely good and attentive to me (how wonderfully 
 sensitive we are to kindness during sickness), while Papa 
 came to see me every night and morning, and would sit with 
 me sometimes for a whole hour, talking to me in his most 
 affectionate way, and telling me of pretty places he would 
 take me to when I was strong enough to bear the journey. 
 And when he left me of a morning, and I beheld the sun 
 shining on the wall without, and the air looking so bright 
 and warm, oh ! how I longed to be out in it, smelling it, 
 and tasting it, and feeling it on my cheeks again, away from 
 that wearisome room, the very pattern of whose paper I had 
 learned by heart. 
 
 But it was a long time before I could entirely get rid of 
 the illusions which had been brought on by my fever. One 
 in particular made so strong an impression on me, that 
 for weeks I could have sworn it had actually taken place, 
 for I could remember hearing, as distinctly as I ever heard 
 anything in the whole course of my life — whilst Herbert and 
 I were standing at the altar — the clergyman say, " Who 
 giveth this woman to be married to this man?" and then seeing 
 Papa, as plainly as plainly could be, step forward and answer 
 in a tremulous voice, "I do;" and by-and-by I clearly saw 
 Herbert take the ring from the right-hand pocket of his 
 waistcoat, and while he was in the act of putting it on the 
 fourth finger of my left hand, and was about to say after the 
 minister, " With this ring I thee wed," it slipped from his 
 hold, and falling on the stones at my feet, shivered into a 
 hundred pieces — like glass. 
 
 What took place after this, I couldn't exactly call to mind; 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 11 
 
 but so real and vivid had been all the previous particulars of 
 the scene, and so strong an impression had I that I had been 
 married somehow, at some time or other, to clear Herbert, 
 that, though I heard all the maid servants about me calling 
 me " Miss/' and "Miss De Roos," still I couldn't help feeling 
 convinced that Mrs. Lacy was my lawful name, and that the 
 reason why they called me by my maiden one was, because 
 they couldn't, in so short a time, get rid of their old habit of 
 doing so. 
 
 " Still, if I am married," I would say to myself, " why 
 does Herbert never come to see me?" And when I used to 
 ask Fan or Mamma " whether my husband would not come 
 back to me soon," they would answer, " Yes, yes," in a hurried, 
 pitying tone, just to humour me in my fancies, and then 
 would immediately turn my thoughts into another channel. 
 
 At length Papa thought I was well enough to be removed 
 to the sea side. Every day there I felt the mist clearing 
 away from my brain; and, as my health returned, I found 
 my doubts as to the reality of my marriage grow stronger 
 and stronger. Until one morning, when they had wheeled my 
 invalid's chair to the cliffs, and Papa was seated on a camp 
 stool by my side, I determined to learn the truth from him. 
 So I said, taking hold of his hand — for his arm was resting 
 on the elbow of my chair — 
 
 " Did I dream that I was married to Herb that is, Mr. 
 
 Lacy, I mean, or am I really married, Papa ?" 
 
 " Has Mr. Lacy, my dear, been to see you even once 
 during your illness?" he replied, turning round to me from 
 his book, and then almost immediately turning back to it 
 again. 
 
 u I know — I know;" I said, half to myself and half to him, 
 " that has struck me as being very strange several times be- 
 fore. Then, of course, you mean that I am not married to 
 him." 
 
 " Yes, my dear Charlotte," he answered, in a kind, yet 
 decided tone, " I am happy to say you are not." 
 
 I no sooner heard the fact from him who I knew would not 
 deceive me, than I burst into a violent flood of tears. 
 
 "Come, come, my poor one!" he said, patting my hand, 
 and pressing it in his, " I did not mean to wound you." 
 
12 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " No! no!" I replied, " I know you did not. But, father, 
 you cannot tell what a happy, happy dream that has been to 
 me, and how my returning reason has lately made me dread 
 it was only a dream; and yet how my too sanguine affec- 
 tion has made me still nurse it as a reality. You tell me I 
 am much better. Indeed, father, I felt much, much better 
 when I was worse." 
 
 I was so low-spirited, that I couldn't help leaning my head 
 on his shoulder, to hide my tears, and cried away like a silly, 
 romantic girl as I was then. 
 
 He tried to divert my thoughts from the subject, but I 
 could think and speak of nothing else. At last he raised his 
 head, and kissed me, saying, " Lotty, you must dismiss this 
 subject altogether from your mind." 
 
 I turned myself round in my chair, and looking steadfastly 
 in his eyes, said, " Father! you have always told me to con- 
 sider you as my best friend; now, if you really are my best 
 friend, why do you stand between me and my happiness." 
 
 "Between you and your misery, rather say, Lotty;" and I 
 saw the tears start into his eyes. " You see, my little lamb, 
 we differ in our notions as to the consequences of this union, 
 and therefore you think me cruel, when I am striving but 
 to be kind; and God only knows what a struggle.it has cost 
 me." 
 
 " But why should my union with Mr. Lacy bring only 
 misery with it? He loves me. Indeed, indeed, he loves me; 
 and my long illness tells you how fearfully I love him." 
 
 " My good girl, something more is required to make a 
 happy union," he replied. " Mr. Lacy has not the means of 
 supporting you, Lotty." 
 
 " I understand you, father," I answered, starting with in- 
 dignation — " I understand. You object to Herbert because 
 he is poor; and yet you've told me that the purest happiness 
 proceeds from affection, and you know that is beyond the 
 power of money to purchase; for directly it is bought, it 
 is no longer affection." 
 
 " You are too apt a pupil, Lotty," he said, sternly; " and 
 I am sadly afraid you borrow rules of life from novels. When 
 I was your age, I had just as great a contempt for money as 
 you have, and I remember, thought my old father as mer- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 13 
 
 cenary as I dare say you think me now. But once in the 
 world, and left to myself to provide those luxuries which the 
 comforts of my father's home had rendered necessaries to me, 
 I soon found that the filthy lucre my young blood and 
 romances had made me spurn whilst I had not to earn my 
 own enjoyments, wasn't quite so contemptible a thing after all. 
 It was not long before I discovered it was good so long as 
 it was used as a means to one's desires, and bad only when 
 it was made the object of them." 
 
 "But you forget, dear Papa, Mr. Lacy is not wholly with- 
 out money," I interrupted him; " and I'm sure his profession 
 yields him enough, at least to keep us two." 
 
 " To keep you," he continued; "yes, but how, Charlotte? 
 The diet of the workhouse is enough to keep the pauper; but 
 it would be worse than starvation to one who has been brought 
 up like you in the lap of luxury. You have as yet wanted 
 for nothing, and always had a maid ready at your hand to do 
 whatever you required. How, then, would you, who think it 
 a degradation now to darn a stocking — how would you like to 
 have nothing but a second floor for drawing-room, sitting-room, 
 kitchen — aye, and nursery, too — and become your husband's 
 servant as well as wife. There is an old proverb, ' when 
 poverty comes in at the door, love flies out at the window.' 
 It may seem a harsh one to you, child, but experience has 
 too often, alas! certified to its truth, and believe me, love de- 
 pends so much upon the happiness conferred by its object, 
 that when the misery of the deprivations we have to put up 
 with through him outweighs the enjoyments we receive from 
 his company, then disappointment and regret step in, and 
 good-bye to affection. There may have been noble excep- 
 tions to this rule, Charlotte; but I do not believe that you 
 have sufficient of the heroine in you to add another to the 
 list — even romantic as you are — for romance appears to me to 
 proceed more from vanity than principle." 
 
 " Are you not looking too much on the dark side of human 
 nature, father?" I asked him, half frightened at the picture 
 he had drawn. 
 
 "No, my dear one," he replied; " conscientiously, I believe 
 not, neither on the very dark nor yet on the very bright side 
 do I wish to look, and my experience, as a physician, has shown 
 
14 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 me both. I wish to consider you and Mr. Lacy as two 
 ordinary beings with ordinary feelings about you; and judging 
 you by this standard, I believe that you might for the honey- 
 moon — or even for a year — be happy and contented together. 
 But when familiarity had sobered down your admiration of 
 one another, I cannot help thinking that your husband would 
 find you — with the accomplishments I have heaped upon you, 
 as one I naturally expected would move in an easier path of 
 life — rather a drag than a helpmate to him; while you — after 
 the sacrifice you couldn't help feeling you had made for him — 
 would think your husband selfish and wanting in affection, 
 for denying you those indulgences which could not but 
 seem extravagances to him, but which habit had made 
 necessaries to you. Further still, each child you bore him 
 would appear to him as an intruder at his not too plentiful 
 board; and you, with the feelings of a woman, must ask your- 
 self how you would like to find each of your little babes 
 looked upon, not as a farther bond of union between you and 
 your husband, but as another incumbrance on your scanty 
 means. Ah, you may stare, Charlotte, but every day's paper 
 will show you that such is the term the many who are 
 struggling for a living do not hesitate even in print to apply 
 to their children." 
 
 I could find neither words nor arguments to combat what 
 Papa had said ; still, as I felt convinced coming age had made 
 him lose all faith in the love of the young, I merely shook 
 my head in answer. 
 
 "Well, my poor one, you think differently," he added. " It is 
 but natural that at your time of life you should; but rest 
 assured it won't be many years before I — who know that each 
 twelvemonth makes girls like you almost different creatures 
 —before I hear you laughing at the very sentiments you 
 now think the beauty of life, and speaking of your first 
 attachment as the thoughtless love of a silly romantic child. 
 
 " Never! so long as I live," I exclaimed, with w T armth; 
 " you do not know me, father, or you would not think so 
 lightly of me." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 15 
 
 OFFER THE SECOND. 
 
 THIS WAS FROM A LITTLE WHISKERLESS BOY, THE BROTHER OF ONE 
 OF MT SCHOOLFELLOWS, TO WHOM I WAS CERTAINLY DESPERATELY 
 ATTACHED AT THE TIME ; THOUGH TO BE CANDID, I HADN'T SEEN 
 THE AMOROUS MANNIKIN MORE THAN TWICE IN MY LIFE, AND 
 IT'S THE GREATEST MERCY THAT OUR LOVES WERE NIPPED IN 
 THE BUD: FOR WE WERE BOTH OF US MERE CHILDREN, AND HE 
 HAS TURNED OUT SO "VERY WILD SINCE THEN, THAT ENSIGN 
 DARBY HAS POSITIVELY INFORMED ME, THAT THE SCAPEGRACE, 
 HAVING GAMBLED AWAY EVERYTHING HE HAD, HAS SUNK DOWN 
 TO A MERE " BONNET" IN THE QUADRANT — THOUGH, AS I SAID AT 
 THE TIME, I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND HOW HE COULD EVER HAVE 
 THE FACE TO SHOW HIMSELF IN SUCH A STATE. 
 
 Papa's lecture didn't do me much good. The more he told 
 me that I must forget Mr. Lacy, the more I was continually 
 thinking of him; and I really do believe that if I'd only had 
 an opportunity, and dear Herbert had proposed to me to run 
 away with him, in a post-chaise and four, to Gretna Green, 
 I should have jumped into it, and been off to that nice oblig- 
 ing old blacksmith who shoes horses and rivets young couples. 
 Besides, I had read so many novels, that at last I began to 
 think that all fathers were naturally tyrants, with bosoms of 
 cast iron, and whose chief amusement consisted in breaking 
 the tender hearts of their poor, dear, beautiful young daugh- 
 ters, by not allowing them to marry some wonderfully pre- 
 possessing pauper, whose " exquisitely chiselled nose" they 
 had fallen madly in love with at first sight. As for me, I'm 
 sure I used to do nothing all day but saunter about the beach, 
 with our Mary keeping close behind me, and carrying that beau- 
 tiful brigand of mine in her arms, while I, in my green veil 
 and buff slippers — with my head cast down and my eyes cast up 
 — went moping along close by the water side, signing like a 
 sea shell, and looking the very picture of a poor, dear, broken- 
 hearted maiden — occasionally stopping, just to trace with the 
 ivory tip of my sweet, pretty, brown satin parasol the loved 
 name of " Herbert Lacy" in the sand, — all of which gave me 
 such an extremely interesting air, that people used to go up 
 to our Mary and inquire whether I had not been crossed 
 in love. Then of a night my chief amusement used to be to 
 
16 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 sit at the casement of my little front bed-room, watching the 
 pale-faced moon, and, as I sipped my basin of warm arrow- 
 root, asking her if her complexion too had been blanched by 
 long, hopeless pining for some good-looking young planet, 
 who, alas! had the misfortune to move in a different circle 
 to herself. 
 
 When Papa found that it was no use talking to me, he de- 
 termined upon sending me to school, where, as he said, the 
 occupation of my studies would soon drive all such silly, sen- 
 timental ideas from my head ; and I declare if in less than a 
 week my mother hadn't found out a " highly genteel" finish- 
 ing establishment for young ladies, at Turnham-green, whi- 
 ther, as soon as all my things had been got ready, I was trans- 
 ported, and where poor, dear Mamma, with tears in her eyes, 
 handed me over to the Misses Thimblebee till the next holi- 
 days, and my six towels, and silver fork and spoon, to them — 
 for ever! 
 
 I hadn't been long at Turnham Green, before I found out 
 that Mrs. Thimblebee's was no ordinary establishment. It 
 was the boast of both ladies that no vulgar tradesman's 
 daughter had ever polluted the exquisitely refined atmo- 
 sphere of " Chesterfield House" — even though they had 
 had several advantageous offers upon the " mutual advantage" 
 system. Indeed, they referred with great pride to their 
 heroic refusal to allow the eldest girl of a highly fashionable 
 butcher at the west end to mingle in their select circle, not- 
 withstanding her fond parent had generously consented to 
 estimate the blessings and graces of French and Italian, 
 Music and Dancing, and Berlin-wool work, at several hundred 
 pounds — of beef and mutton per quarter. No! the Misses 
 Thimblebee were in no way anxious to devote their energies 
 to the rearing of young plebeian " mushrooms," though no- 
 thing on earth would have given them greater pleasure than 
 to have bestowed their talents upon the training of budding- 
 ducal " strawberry -leaves." At Chesterfield house, young- 
 ladies rehearsed the parts they were intended to act at Al- 
 mack's. There the rough block of the child of nature re- 
 ceived its finishing touches, and was converted into the highly 
 polished statue of fashionable society — fit for an ornament to 
 any drawing-room. There the grave of departed nature was 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 17 
 
 adorned with all kinds of artificial flowers; and there, 
 Woman — tutored in all the fascinations of the ball-room — 
 was taught to shine at night like the glow-worm; in order to 
 attract her mate by the display of a brilliance that had no 
 warmth in it. 
 
 The Misses Thimblebee, though in their prospectuses they 
 passed as two maiden sisters (the only daughters of a de- 
 ceased clergyman at the west end of the metropolis), were, to 
 tell the truth, not both in a state of " single blessedness," — as* 
 the rougher sex delight to call it. Miss Grace Thimblebee 
 still dawdled on in all the slow purity of spinsterhood ; but 
 Miss Prudence — her younger sister — had, in the flighty mo- 
 ments of her thirty-fifth year, been imprudent enough to rush, 
 blindly into matrimony with a certain gay commercial tra- 
 veller, of the name of Dawes — though if ever she allowed 
 herself to allude to the occupation of that " bad, bad man," 
 she always dropped the " commercial," and spoke of him as 
 a " great traveller," who had unfortunately been led astray, 
 and ruined his " fine intellect and noble figure" by an 
 over fondness for the bottle. On condition that he should not 
 come near the school, Miss Prudence allowed her husband 
 a very respectable annuity; but still the poor thing lived 
 in constant dread of seeing the hopeless prodigal some fine 
 morning force an entrance into the highly moral precincts of 
 Chesterfield House, and demand to be instantly furnished 
 with all the ready cash she had on the premises, and which 
 she knew he would be certain to declare was his by law. 
 The very first half I was there, after he had sent — every day 
 for a whole fortnight — a fresh letter, unpaid, with " imme- 
 diate," written in large characters, and with three notes of 
 admiration after it, on the envelope, he one afternoon, whilst 
 we were at lessons, doing velvet painting, marched into 
 the school-room, smelling disgustingly of spirits and tobacco, 
 with his eyes all heavy and red, and seating himself down on 
 one of the forms among the young ladies, said, he had "just 
 dropped in about that small matter," and vowed with a hor- 
 rible oath, that he wouldn't " leave the place until he had got 
 what was justly his own." Then, I declare, if the monster 
 didn't begin whistling and winking at some of the girls in the 
 first class, and pinching the arm of the " Native de Paris" 
 
 c 
 
18 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 and telling her never to mind him, for he was " only honest 
 Jack Dawes." As far as I could judge — considering the 
 fright I was in — the monster must have been upwards of six 
 feet high, in his " stout men's," and at least a good ell-wide 
 across the shoulders, with very large, bushy, sandy whiskers, 
 and little or no colour in his face, except at the end of his 
 nose, which was almost as deep as beet-root. Nor was there 
 any getting rid of the red-nosed giant, until poor Miss Prudence 
 had gone up stairs, and brought down some bank-notes, 
 which the brute took, saying, he'd make shift with them for 
 the present; and adding, that he was glad to see his "old girl 
 was not neglecting her duties," and that he "was sorry he 
 couldn't stop and dine with the ladies that day;" he staggered 
 out of the room, singing, " Nine cheers for the girls that we 
 love." After this, Miss Grace gave us a long lecture upon " the 
 wreck that once remarkably fine man had made of himself by 
 the use of ardent spirits," and hoped that " the disgusting 
 scene we had just witnessed would act as a warning to us all, 
 and make us ' look before we leapt' into matrimony." 
 
 The first day I was at Chesterfield House, upon my word, 
 if my whole time wasn't completely taken up in telling the 
 stupid girls " what my Pa was," and " what kind of a carriage 
 we kept," and " how many servants we had," and " whether 
 I had any brothers or not;" and when I informed them, that 
 I had " only one," — then it was, " Is he good looking ?" and 
 " had the dear got black or blue eyes," and " what was the 
 colour of the pet's hair?" and "did it curl naturally or not?" 
 and was the " angel in long-tailed coats yet, and out of turn- 
 down collars or not?" and "did Ma intend the beauty for the 
 army, or the church; or did I think she'd make a duck of an 
 impudent-young-monkey of a midshipman of him, in a gold 
 lace cap, and tiddy-ickle ringlets, like that charming rogue of a 
 brother of Miss Ghearding that left last half, and w r hom Miss 
 Thimblebee had ordered to quit the house, at least a dozen 
 times, for his tricks." 
 
 I declare, too, if I had to unpack my box once, I had to do 
 it twenty times; for they would one after another make me 
 show them my things, while they kept exclaiming, "Oh! 
 goodness! what a duck of a clear muslin!" and "Mi! what a 
 dear dear poppet of a riband — whatever did it come to a 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 19 
 
 yard, love?" — then, " What a divine lutestring ! Did I get it at 
 that paradise of a Howell and James's?'' — afterwards, " Well! 
 there is a superb chemisette — only look ! They never saw such 
 exquisite open work, and such a little pet of an edging. Lor ! 
 if it wasn't the very best Valenciennes ! Oh! what delightful 
 extravagance, dear!" — next it was, " What a heavenly crino- 
 line ! oh ! it was fit for an angel — it was so beautiful and full. 
 Did I have it sent over to me from Paris?" — then, again, 
 " Gracious! if I hadn't got some sweeties, and a whole tin case 
 full of acidulated drops, too, as they lived ! — Oh ! how nicey ! 
 Do let me taste only just one — there's a dear — I'll give you 
 some of mine next time they send me any;" — after that, "Do 
 open this fixature for me — there's a love — -just to let me see 
 if it's the same as I use, and whether the directions say it's 
 to be put on with an old toothbrush like mine, dear;" and 
 lastly, " Wouldn't I just draw the cork of that lovely nosegay 
 of a mille-fleurs, only to let them have one smell;" and then, 
 "As it was open, and some of the finest they'd ever smelt in 
 all their days, would I mind pouring just half a drop down 
 their bosoms like a good-natured pet as I was?" 
 
 When they'd all seen my box, some of the big girls took me 
 down into the play-ground, and there we walked up and 
 clown with our arms round each other's waists, while they 
 told me they were " so glad I'd come that day I didn't know;" 
 for I was to sleep in the long room, and they were going to 
 have "such a bit of fun" there that night, I couldn't tell. 
 What did I think? They were going to get up and have a 
 grand feast, after they had gone to bed, and they'd heard Miss 
 Thimblebee let down the night-bolt in her room; and if I 
 chose to be my share towards it, and let them have — like a 
 dear — that pot of tamarinds I'd got in my trunk, they didn't 
 mind letting me go partners — only I was to be sure and 
 not say a word about it to the girls in the other rooms, for 
 they were enemies, and the nasty spiteful things would be 
 sure to go and tell — especially that red-haired Miss Coburn, 
 who had such a long tongue, and was such a tell-tit, there 
 was no trusting her with anything, although she had been 
 pinched till she was black and blue for it. So they wouldn't 
 have it come to her ears for ever so much, for they had made 
 up their minds that it should be the grandest feast they had 
 
 c2 
 
20 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 had "that half." Only to fancy, too! they had got Susan, 
 for an old pair of Miss M'Taggart's satin shoes, to go out and 
 fetch them half a dozen large fourpenny mutton pies from the 
 pastry-cook's, and a shilling box of ginger-beer powders, 
 which they had all subscribed for. Wouldn't it be nice? and 
 they'd got cook, who was a dear old thing, to give them a 
 whole nightcap full of flour on the sly; and Emmy Strong'i'- 
 th'arm, who had won the prize for morals last half, had made 
 yesterday — which was a half holiday — ever so many sweet 
 cakes in the wash-hand basin. And the best of it was, they'd 
 agreed to try and do some fritters at night with some of the 
 peaches Miss Clanricard had had sent her from home. Didn't 
 I think it would be a good game? Of course, I said yes, and 
 they could have a bit of my plum-cake as well, if they liked; 
 but they told me Miss Thimblebee always made it a rule to 
 have all the cakes the young ladies brought with them cut up 
 for tea, which they all agreed was a great shame — saying, it 
 was all very well for the greedy pigs of little girls, but they 
 did think that they were old enough to know when they'd 
 had enough, and ought to be allowed to keep their own good 
 things to themselves, and share them among the girls -who 
 slept in their room just as they pleased. 
 
 Accordingly, that night, after we had heard the Miss 
 Thimblebees go up to their room, and Susan had taken up 
 the plate-basket, and the glasses of hot elder wine and rusks, 
 which they were accustomed to sup upon in bed, we remained 
 quiet until we fancied they were fast asleep, and then slipping 
 on our wrappers, we lighted the candle-ends we had bought of 
 cook. Then, while some of us went to work on tip-toe, 
 laying the sheet which we used for a tablecloth, and setting 
 the tooth -glasses for tumblers, and the scissors for knives, 
 and cleaning the tops of our pomatum pots for plates, Miss 
 Strong'i'th'arm, who was the best cook in the room, began 
 beating up with the end of a tooth-brush the batter for the 
 fritters in the bottom of the soap-dish, which she washed out 
 expressly for the occasion; and when it was all ready, the 
 clever creature fried them quite nicely on a slate over the 
 brisk fire of six ends of candles. 
 
 " Do come and eat them whilst there're hct, there's dears," 
 whispered Miss Strong'i'th'arm, as soon as they were done; 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 21 
 
 and after we had burnt some brown paper, to take away the 
 smell of the frying, down we sat on the floor, as hungry as 
 poets, and devoured as much as one and a half a-piece — giving 
 two to the cook. After this came the second course, of de- 
 licious mutton pies; and this was followed by a remove, of 
 beautiful sweet cakes and tamarinds; in the middle of which, 
 that Miss Waterford — who is a rare merry one — said, bowing 
 across the sheet to me, " Will you allow me the honour of 
 taking a glass of ginger-beer with you, Miss De Roos;" and 
 then, I declare, if Miss Rawlinson — who is so fond of a bit of 
 fun — didn't get up, and say in a whisper, " Will you be so 
 good as to fill your tooth glasses, I have a toast to propose;" 
 and when we had stood up in our wrappers, and put the 
 tartaric acid into the ginger-beer powder, she asked us, in a 
 low voice, " Are you all mixed? Then, here's ' the ladies! 
 God bless 'em!'" Whereupon we all emptied our glasses, and 
 cried out, "Hip, hip, hurra! hurra! hurra-a-a-a-a!" as faintly 
 as we possibly could. This done, we put all the things by in 
 the foot-pan, and jumped into bed, and began telling stories to 
 each other; when Miss Howard told us all about how she had 
 once dressed in her brother Henry's clothes, and turned up 
 all her hair, and made herself a pair of moustachios with burnt 
 cork — and how then she had gone out at dusk, and walked 
 ever such a way down Portland-place, all by herself — 'pon 
 her word and honour she had ! — and nobody knew her from a 
 real man; and how, when she came back, even their maid 
 didn't recognise her, and threatened to scream if she dared to 
 kiss her; and, at last, how, when her hat fell off, and the girl 
 found out who it was, she said she ought to be ashamed of 
 herself, to impose upon a poor servant girl in that way — 
 though she couldn't help saying, that Miss Howard made one 
 of the most good-lookingest and wickedest young gentlemen 
 she ever set eyes upon. Oh ! it was such a good bit of fun, we 
 didn't know; and she wished she'd been born a boy-^that was 
 all! After this, Miss Cabell remembered how, once, when 
 Uncle Ben came to stop a week at her Pa's in Hampshire, 
 she and her sister Kate, who was married, used to stitch up 
 the tops of his stockings together, and sow up the bottoms of 
 the lining of his trousers, and flour the inside of his nightcap, 
 and either make him an apple-pie bed, or else put the hair 
 
ZZ WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 broom down at the bottom inside of it, and play him a whole 
 number of such funny tricks, no one could tell. Oh, it was 
 the best game she had ever had in all her life, and she did 
 like romping so/" And thus we went on, talking away, till 
 we heard the market gardeners' carts and the mail-coaches 
 going past the door on their way to town, and could see the 
 daylight looking quite grey through the cracks in the shutters. 
 Next morning we were all of us so tired, that when the 
 bell rang for us to get up, as we were allowed an hour to 
 dress, we remained in bed, and didn't move till it only wanted 
 ten minutes to the time for us to be in the school-room for 
 prayers, so that when we made our appearance down stairs 
 we all looked such slovens there was a fine to do. First of 
 all, Miss Grace Thimblebee called up Miss Strong'i'th'arm, 
 and asked her how she could have the audacity to think of 
 appearing before her without having bandolined her hair, and 
 what she expected would ever become of her if she went on 
 in that way; and then having ordered her to translate the 
 whole of the description of the plates in the last week's " Petit 
 Courier des Dames," she told her to take herself up stairs 
 immediately after prayers, and make her hair look something 
 like a Christian's. Then she turned round to Miss Cabell, 
 and said, " Come here, child, and let me see your hands, that 
 you're rubbing in that furious way, for they look disgustingly 
 red; and well indeed they might," she added, " for I can 
 plainly see that you never slept in your gloves with the pate 
 d'Amande inside of them. Where on earth do you expect 
 to go to with hands like those, you bad, bad child! You'll 
 please to stand in a corner, and hold your arms up over your 
 head for a whole hour, immediately after prayers." And when 
 she was done with her, she turned round again, and said, 
 " Miss Rawlinson, your forehead looks extremely low this 
 morning, and your eyebrows much closer than they were a 
 week ago; I'm half afraid you haven't used your tweezers for 
 these many days past. It's a. wonder to me that the ground 
 doesn't open and swallow you up, you wicked, wicked girl! 
 There, go along with you, and just to teach you in future to 
 remove all superfluous hair from between your parting and 
 eyebrows, you will please to get by heart the six first pages 
 of the second chapter of 'The Handbook of the Toilet.'" 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 23 
 
 iC Miss Howard," then she went on, "just step this way, if 
 you please. Your dress seems to hang down behind you, as 
 if you had no more bend in your back than an old oak chair. 
 Why, you uncivilized little heathen — you! You've got no 
 crinoline on, as I hope to be saved! Were there ever such 
 girls! But I must put a stop to these evil ways; so you'll 
 remember, Miss Howard, to be able to repeat to me the first 
 five-and-twenty rules of your ' Etiquette for the Ladies,' 
 before you taste a mouthful of luncheon. And, Miss 
 Waterford," she continued, "why are you hiding behind Miss 
 M'Taggart in that way? Oh, I see! you are afraid I should 
 discover how thin your hair is, I suppose? How often, now, 
 am I to tell you that if your mamma desires you to wear ring- 
 lets, you must throw as much of your back hair into your 
 front curls as you can, or you never will appear to have a 
 luxuriant head of it. If you go on in this way, I'm sure I 
 won't take upon myself to say what your latter end will be. 
 All I can tell you is, I sha'n't be able to rest easy in my bed 
 until I see a very great alteration in your looks. So you will 
 please to stop in the school during play hours, and devote your 
 leisure to the translation of the first of ' Timothy' into elegant 
 Italian." 
 
 At half past two the bell rang for our goute a la fourchette, 
 when we were expected to make a hearty meal, so that we 
 might appear to be remarkably delicate, small eaters at din- 
 ner time, (which never took place till six o'clock,) and Miss 
 Strong'i'th'arm told me, that though we were allowed beer at 
 luncheon, still it was to be considered a profound secret, and 
 that Miss Grace Thimblebee had once put Miss Howard in 
 the stocks, and kept her on bread and water for three whole 
 days, for asking at dinner for a glass of the disgusting 
 beverage, which she said no lady of the least pretensions to 
 breeding was supposed to know even the taste of. During 
 lunch, I unfortunately said, I would take a little cabbage, as 
 I saw a vegetable dish of very nice white-heart summer one's 
 upon the table. No sooner had the word fallen from my 
 lips, than Miss Prudence (she objected to our calling her Mrs. 
 Dawes) dropped her knife and fork, and looking at me with 
 all her eyes, inquired, " What did you say you'd take, Miss 
 De Roos?" "A little cabbage, if you please, ma'm," I re- 
 
24 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 plied, quite innocently. "Cabbage! cabbage!" she echoed, 
 " I don't know such a word in the English language, and yet 
 I am not generally considered to be utterly ignorant of ray 
 mother tongue. Pray, what may you mean by the term?" 
 
 " I only wanted some of the vegetables opposite to Made- 
 moiselle de Nemours," I answered. 
 
 " Then you will not have any," she returned; "and that, 
 perhaps, will make you remember for the future, that those 
 vegetables are only known here, as well as in all other 
 fashionable circles, by the name of Greens. Cabbage ! cabbage ! 
 — I suppose I shall soon be doomed to hear you ask for a piece 
 of horrid, horrid cheese. What do you expect will become 
 of you, if you go on in this way?" 
 
 After luDch we all laid down on our backs for an hour on 
 the boards, so as to improve our figure, and prevent any 
 roundness in our shoulders; then we had lessons in personal 
 deportment, and after this came a slight lecture on the art of 
 stepping into a carriage like a lady; on the conclusion of 
 which, we adjourned to the bottom of the play -ground, where 
 the body of an old landau was fixed up under a shed, so that 
 we might put into practice the valuable precepts that had 
 just been expounded to us. This done, we were dismissed to 
 dress ourselves for the evening, for which we were allowed 
 an hour; and at ten minutes to six, we all entered the draw- 
 ing room, whence, as soon as dinner was announced to be on 
 the table, we handed down each other, descending the stairs in 
 couples to the dining-room. 
 
 Here I got myself, if possible, into worse disgrace than 
 ever; for, unfortunately for me, there was some very nice 
 soupe Julienne, and it was so much to my taste, that when 
 Miss Grace Thimblebee said, " Miss De Roos, now do allow 
 me to send you a little more soup," I replied, " Thank you; 
 since you're so pressing I will toko, a little more, if you please, 
 m'am;" and immediately I had said so, I never saw such mental 
 agony expressed in a human countenance before. " Do I live 
 to hear one of my pupils say that she will take twice of soup," 
 she groaned. " Oh, that it should come to tins; that /, who 
 have devoted the whole of my energies to the refinement of 
 my sex — that / should be doomed to have my heart-strings 
 snapt asunder by any such unheard-of barbarisms. Surely, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 25 
 
 Miss de Roos, you must have been brought up in the back 
 woods of America? But you will be pleased to go through 
 the whole of the tenth edition of my little book of " How to 
 Live upon Two Hundred a- Year, so as to make it appear 
 a thousand ;" and until you can repeat all its valuable pre- 
 cepts by heart, you will not dine at this table again. It is a 
 moral duty that I owe to the other young ladies." 
 
 " But, ma'am!" I replied, " you yourself pressed me to take 
 some more!" 
 
 " Of course I did; good breeding required as much from 
 me" she answered; "but I never expected that you would 
 be ill-bred enough to think for one moment that I meant you 
 to take me at my word. I suppose next, that if I pressed 
 you to wear your best gloves at evening service, you would 
 be stupid and prodigal enough to do as I requested." 
 
 I declare though, she had no sooner done lecturing me, 
 than observing little, red-haired Miss Coburn convey some 
 peas to her mouth by means of her knife, she fell into a state 
 of greater horror than ever. 
 
 "Miss Coburn! Miss Coburn!" she screamed; " do you 
 want to drive your faithful preceptress to a premature grave! 
 I'm sure, if I have made you once go over the sixty-eighth 
 maxim of ' Etiquette for the Ladies,' I must have made 
 you do it at least a hundred times; and yet it only seems as if 
 the golden rules and inestimable truths of that little treasure of 
 a book were entirely thrown away upon you. Now, what 
 does that very sixty-eighth maxim tell you the lady of fashion 
 used to say were her feelings on seeing a person raise her 
 knife to her mouth?" 
 
 Miss Coburn remained silent, in evident forgetfulness of 
 what the lady of fashion really did say. 
 
 " Oh, you don't know, don't you;" Miss Thimblebee con- 
 tinued; " then I shall fine you sixpence out of your pocket- 
 money, though I regret to state, you have been fined so often 
 that you have no more to receive this quarter. However, per- 
 haps, Miss Smythe Smythe will oblige us all by instructing 
 you on this interesting point." 
 
 And immediately Miss Smythe Smythe started off with — 
 " Please Ma'm — the — lady — of — fashion — used — to — say — 
 that — she — never — saw — a — person — guilty — of — this — 
 
26 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 ugly — habit — without — a — shudder — as — every — minute — 
 she — expected — to — see — the — head — of — the — unfortunate 
 — severed — from — the — body." 
 
 "Very pretty indeed! thank you! Miss Snrythe-Snrythe," 
 said Miss Grace. " We are all of us very much obliged to 
 you, I'm sure; and after dinner you may come to me for a 
 card of merit." 
 
 "We had only just been helped for the first time to the 
 second course, and had scarcely finished what was on our 
 plates, when Miss Grace Thimblebee said to her sister at the 
 end of the table, " Prudence, my love, can I send you a little 
 more?" and no sooner had Miss Prudence, of course, replied, 
 " No more, I thank you, dearest," than Miss Grace ran her 
 eyes round the table, nodding her head to each of us as 
 quickly as she could, saying, " Nor you? — nor you? — nor you? 
 — n'you? — n'you? — n'you?. — n'you? Then you may take away, 
 Susan. I'm sorry to see my pets are such small eaters." 
 
 After dinner we had to sit down to knit anti-maccassars 
 and window-curtains; and when the evenings were long, Miss 
 Thimblebee would make us amuse ourselves either with 
 Berlin-wool work, or velvet-painting, or embroidery, or ja- 
 panning, or wax flowers, and other odd knick-knackeries; 
 and though the materials for them were regularly charged for 
 in the half-year's bill, still the articles themselves when 
 finished were considered to be the property of the Misses 
 Thimblebee. "Idleness, my dear children," Miss Grace 
 would say, " is the root of all evil, and consequently I am 
 never so well pleased as when I see my sweet girls like an 
 united family, innocently — ay, and I may add profitably — en- 
 gaged in some lady-like pas-time (not parse-time, you will 
 observe, Miss de Roos)." 
 
 And well the thin, old, turbaned thing might be pleased 
 with seeing us engaged so innocently — ay, and profitably, — 
 as well indeed, too, she might add; for to tell the truth, "her 
 sweet girls" had managed to supply her with gratuitous win- 
 dow-curtains, and chair and sofa cushions and covers for most 
 of the apartments in Chesterfield House; while the grand re- 
 ception-room for all parents and guardians had been entirely 
 stocked with furniture and ornaments — from the large worked 
 ottoman which stood in the middle of the room, down to the 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 27 
 
 two superb bouquets of wax flowers which graced each end 
 of the mantel-piece — free of all expense, by " the lady -like 
 exertions of her united family." 
 
 Whilst we sat there at that stupid knitting, dropping one, 
 and missing two, and letting go three, and throwing off four, 
 and then taking up five, and casting off six, or something 
 just as intellectual and amusing, it was the established rule 
 that we should talk nothing but French; and in order to en- 
 force the practice, the " Native de Paris," as she was called, 
 always remained in the room with us. However, to tell the 
 truth, the "Native de Paris" wasn't of much use;amongst us, 
 for we were not long in finding out that she had entered this 
 world via the Surrey-side of the Thames, and was rather 
 " une native de Peckham Rye ;" and though she now chose 
 to give herself a fine French name, still, in common gratitude 
 to her godfathers and godmothers, or even in common ho- 
 nesty to the parents of her pupils, she should have added to 
 her grand "Angelique de Nemours," " nee Sally Cockle;" 
 and, perhaps, it wouldn't have been so much amiss if, while 
 she was about it, she had aifixed to the title, " and cousin to 
 the Misses Thimblebee by their mother's side," into the bar- 
 gain. But we liked her the best of the whole of the teachers, 
 for though we were all taught to look up to her as our French 
 mistress, still poor Angelique couldn't help looking down 
 upon herself as a mere French pupil. And well, indeed, she 
 might; for, to be candid, her pure Parisian accent had such a 
 strong Bow-bell twang, that I doubt very much if she could 
 have made herself understood at even a Boulogne table d'hote. 
 So, finding that she was incapable of expressing herself in 
 good sound French, she always made a point of speaking her 
 mind in bad broken English, in which she was materially 
 assisted by a strong lisp, and that Babel-like confusion of the 
 v's and the w's which appertain to the true London dialect. 
 
 As I was saying, then, there we used to sit, knitting away, 
 while Mademoiselle Angelique read to us the descriptions of 
 the plates in the last number of the "Petit courier des Dames" 
 though it was with the greatest difficulty that we could under- 
 stand, from her pronunciation, what grand new discovery had 
 been made in the not-at-all-fixed sciences of millinery and 
 mantua-making. 
 
28 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Les robes" she would read, "song generalmong a corsage 
 excessivemong basket/ et tres decollectees ong avong." 
 
 " And sweetly pretty it must look, my dears," cried Miss 
 Prudence, who said she could understand the language per- 
 fectly, though she couldn't speak it. 
 
 " Ong fait ledos" continued mademoiselle, "ong amazong; 
 et ong pose doo rong de volang cm haut des munches pour 
 former des Jockeys." 
 
 "What is that you say about jockeys? Let me see the 
 book," said Miss Grace Thimblebee, taking it from Made- 
 moiselle Angelique's hand. "Dear me! it certainly is as 
 you said, my dear! Sleeves — formed at the top — like — 
 jockeys. And, now I come to think of it, I've no doubt it 
 would have a very charming and novel effect. And even if 
 it didn't — why, since it is the fashion, it is our duty, while 
 sojourning in this sublunary sphere, to follow it. Proceed, 
 mademoiselle." 
 
 "La mode des voiturcs" continued mademoiselle, " reste 
 ctssez stationnaire. Quong aux livrees elles ong leur saisong 
 bieng market/. Le chapeau est rond bordee deune large 
 galong. Lliabit est deune blue vif garni de bontong de mettle. 
 Le gilet estjone. Le calotte est rouje ong panne et de grandes 
 quetres de peau, finissang au-dessew dew genneiu." 
 
 "Oh! ness par que say jolly .'" cried mademoiselle, in rap- 
 tures, " how me vould likey von footman dressed com sar. 
 But me never have no hidear dat dare vare de fashions for de 
 footmen, as veil as for de ladies of haut Tong." 
 
 " Then I blush for you, Miss Co , that is, Mademoiselle 
 
 de Nemours, I should say," exclaimed Miss Thimblebee, 
 rising from her chair. " Why should not the noble aristocracy 
 of this land of freedom delight to see their serving-men gaily 
 dressed as well as themselves? Tell me, 1 ask — where will 
 you see such taste displayed as in the liveries of old England? 
 Why, even my Macaw appears tawdry beside the British 
 Footman. But if you have any doubts on this subject, I must 
 beg of you, Miss Co — dear me, Mademoiselle de Nemours, I 
 mean — not to let me hear you profess any such wicked scepti- 
 cism again." 
 
 Thus matters went on for upwards of three months; and 
 although every half hour through the day some fresh study 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 29 
 
 was introduced, and I learned an infinity of accomplishments, 
 still, I cannot at this present time call to mind that I was 
 taught any knowledge. Miss Thimblebee was constantly 
 reminding me that I was receiving the finished education of 
 a perfect lady, though, when I was finished, and had left her 
 school, I was totally ignorant of all that was really useful, or 
 truly admirable. Thus matters went on, then, until one day, 
 just as we had finished our morning lessons, and Miss Thimble- 
 bee had quitted the school-room, Miss Prudence, who had 
 remained behind, requested silence, and then told us she had 
 a few words to say to us before we retired to the play-ground, 
 on the subject of a joyful event, in which she was sure we all 
 felt equally interested. 
 
 To be brief, she was happy to inform us that that day month 
 was the birthday of her dear, dear, dear sister, and our faith- 
 ful preceptress, Miss Grace Thimblebee. She could read in 
 our eyes how the pleasurable intelligence had gratified us, and 
 how we were all planning in our hearts, like sweet good girls 
 as we were, some little fond surprise, which should be a tan- 
 gible proof of our love, and worthy the acceptance of that 
 exemplary woman, whom to know, she would add, was to 
 adore. Well, she would not stand between us and our gene- 
 rous feelings, but would forthwith place in Miss Strongi'th'- 
 arm's hands a money-box, for the reception of subscriptions- 
 — however trifling they might be — for it was the sentiment 
 that gave each offering its value and not the amount — though 
 at the same time it might be as well to mention that nothing 
 under five shillings would be received." 
 
 After she had gone, I asked Miss Strongi'th'arm, "What 
 we had better buy for Miss Thimblebee with the money ?" 
 But she told me, " I needn't trouble my head about that, as 
 Miss Prudence would be sure to lay the money out herself; 
 adding, it was only last half that Miss Grace Thimblebee 
 had made very nearly the same speech to them on behalf of her 
 sister Prudence, and indeed it was a rule with the two ladies 
 once a year to do a similar turn one for the other, for by such 
 means they had amassed a very handsome service of plate 
 out of their joint birthdays. 
 
 About three days before the joyful event, Miss Prudence 
 came into the school-room, and having unlocked the money- 
 
30 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 box and put the contents into a reticule, which she had 
 brought with her for the purpose, told us, after she had rec- 
 koned the amount, that she had hoped she should have been 
 able to have presented her sister with a very neat silver 
 liqueur stand, (which Miss Grace had much admired,) but as 
 she regretted to find the subscription was not so liberal as it 
 had been on former occasions, she must content herself with 
 a small set of silver shells for scolloped oysters, (which she 
 knew her sister was excessively fond of for supper.) Further, 
 she had prepared a short congratulatory and complimentary 
 address, begging Miss Thimblebee's acceptance of the trifling- 
 token of our affection and esteem. This she purposed should 
 be spoken by the two youngest ladies in their establishment, 
 on the joyful occasion, when there would be a little reunion. 
 just a " dannce" a glass of negus and a cake or so, for she 
 intended to treat us all as friends, and make no stupid fuss 
 with us. Then giving the copy of the address to Miss Strong- 
 i'th'arm, she said, " Perhaps she would be kind enough to see 
 that Miss Coburn and Miss Smythe Smythe got it oif by 
 heart as soon as possible, taking care that they were quite 
 perfect in the hard words, and that they paid particular 
 attention to their stops." 
 
 On the evening of the joyful event, the drawing-room was 
 lighted up, and the carpet removed; while the forms which 
 had been brought up from the schoolroom were, by means of 
 a covering of green baize, converted into rout seats. The 
 music mistress had been invited to join in the festivities of 
 the evening; and immediately she made her appearance, she 
 was asked if she would be good enough to oblige them with 
 just one of her beautiful quadrilles, and then handed to the 
 piano, which she never left the whole evening through. The 
 dancing master had been likewise asked to make one of the 
 happy party; and as soon as he set foot in the room, he was 
 requested to act as master of the ceremonies. The company 
 consisted of the whole of the teachers, and only one mother 
 and an aunt out of all the parents and relations, though every 
 one of them had been asked; " but, unfortunately," as Miss 
 Thimblebee said, at least ten times in the course of the 
 evening, "they had all previous engagements, which they 
 regretted would deprive them of the pleasure of being pre- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 31 
 
 sent on the joyful occasion." However, there were several 
 young gentlemen from a neighbouring establishment, who, 
 though of rather too tender an age to please us, still looked 
 particularly clean and uneasy, and had all been elaborately 
 curled and pumped for the joyful event. Their entrance was 
 immediately followed by quadrilles and a strong smell of rose 
 hair oil. After one or two dances, in which the young gen- 
 tlemen went through the different steps with their eyes in- 
 tently watching each movement of their feet, Miss Thimblebee 
 asked Miss Rawlinson — whose mamma was the one present 
 — if she would be so kind as to oblige the company with her 
 " Gavotte?" When, by dint of saying one-two-three-four to 
 herself, that young lady had accomplished this feat, Miss 
 Howard w r as requested to let her aunt see how charmingly 
 she was getting on with her music, and to be good enough to 
 play " the Battle of Prague" for them. As soon as she had 
 finished, and been highly complimented for the beauty of her 
 "cries of the wounded," Miss Strongi'th'arm and Miss 
 Waterford kindly consented to favour the visitors with one 
 of their charming Italian duets; and after a long consultation 
 with the music mistress, at last decided upon singing their 
 beautiful " La ehi darem la mano" which went off delight- 
 fully. Then came a fearful pause; for Miss Prudence had re- 
 tired with little Miss Coburn and little Miss Smythe Smythe, 
 followed by Miss Strongi'th'arm, while Miss Thimblebee, 
 who appeared to be greatly astonished at their all leaving the 
 room together in such a mysterious way, wondered what it 
 could mean, and drew the attention of the visitors to a table 
 strewn with our crayon drawings, where Miss Cabell's head 
 of Andromache was much admired by all, excepting Miss 
 Eawlinson's mamma, who said that she thought the pencilling 
 was neither so firm nor so free as that in the sheet of noses 
 by her daughter; indeed, to be candid — and with the young, 
 she was sure Miss Thimblebee would agree with her, it was 
 much better to be so, — she thought the shading, and under 
 the chin, looked too much like hair to please her; and surely 
 the tear she was shedding was a leetle out of proportion; 
 while, to tell the truth, she never did think much of the origi- 
 nal; nor did she ever like the subject; nor was she at all 
 pleased with the way in which it was treated. So Miss 
 
32 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Thimblebee, to take the parent's attention from the drawings, 
 dexterously asked Miss Clanriccard who Andromache was? 
 and just as that young lady was informing the guests that, 
 "Please, ma'm,Andromache-was-the-wife-of-Heetor-of-Troy- 
 and-she-was-so-fond-of-her-husband-that-she — "when, unfor- 
 tunately, Miss Strongi'th'arm entered the room, followed by 
 little Miss Coburn and Miss Snrythe Smythe, bearing the 
 silver scollop-shells on one of the ottoman cushions out of the 
 reception-room. 
 
 " Why, bless me! what is the meaning of this, my dears?" 
 cried Miss Thimblebee, retiring and seating herself in the 
 embroidered easy chair, which one of the girls had wheeled 
 into the middle of the room for her. 
 
 Then Miss Coburn and Miss Smythe Smythe each made a 
 profound curtsey to the enthroned lady, and nearly dropped 
 the silver shells in so doing. After this they both began, in 
 a sing-song tone, — 
 
 " We humbly approach you, Miss Grace Thimblebee, our 
 much-respected and beloved mistress, on this, the anniversary 
 of your natal day, to offer you (will you mind your stops, Miss 
 Coburn, whispered Miss Prudence,) to offer you our heartfelt 
 con — con-gratulations (* One,' said Miss Coburn in an under- 
 tone to herself, minding her stops, and so marking a comma,) 
 and to breathe a hope (one,) and prayer (one,) that your 
 valuable existence may be spared for many revolutions of this 
 globe to come (one, two:) and — a — a — a — (' That you will 
 condescend to accept,' " Oh, you bad child! where is your 
 head?" whispered Miss Prudence to Miss Smythe Smythe,) 
 and that you will condescend to accept," continued the young 
 lady, in a half-crying tone, " this paltry token of our profound 
 gratitude (one,) and esteem (one, two;) which (one,) however 
 insignificant its real worth may be (one,) we feel convinced 
 you will attach no trifling value to (one,) as the testimony of 
 the admiration and respect of the young and innocent for the 
 virtues (one,) beauty (one,) accomplishments (one,) and learn- 
 ing of one who is so bright an ornament to her sex (one,) and 
 so kind to her pupils (one, two, three, four.) And please, 
 ma'm, that's all." 
 
 "Very nicely spoken indeed! Thank you, young ladies," 
 exclaimed Miss Prudence; and then taking Miss Smythe 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 33 
 
 Smythe aside, she added in an undertone, " I'll make you 
 suffer for this to-morrow, Miss! — that I will!" then turning 
 round to the company with a bland smile, she said, putting her 
 hand up, " Sh-sh-sh-sh-sh!" 
 
 Immediately Miss Thimblebee rose from her chair, and 
 taking a small slip of paper from her pocket, she occasionally 
 spoke and occasionally read as follows: — 
 
 " Beloved pupils and respected parents" — but suddenly re- 
 membering that there was only one present, she corrected 
 herself — " parent I should have said ; I can assure you the 
 presentation of this little token of your profound gratitude 
 and esteem, has taken me so much by surprise — that — that," 
 (looking at the paper ) "I cannot find words to express the 
 feelings that this simple silver liqueur stand — no, scollop shells 
 I should say, has — dear me, no — have, of course, I mean — but," 
 she added, crumpling up the paper, which had caused her to 
 make so many mistakes, "my feelings quite overpower me 
 — you see — so I can only say — a — a — that I am extremely 
 obliged — you know — for this — a — a — a — whatever is the 
 word — I've got it on the tip of my tongue — this — a — a — a — 
 what-d'ye-call-it; on this my — a — a — a — no matter what — 
 birthday, so I return you all my very best thanks." And 
 then down she sat, quite in a puff. 
 
 Any one may well imagine, that at such an establishment 
 as I have in these last six or eight pages endeavoured to 
 describe, I was not long in discovering the impropriety of 
 bestowing my affections upon one of so low a standing in 
 society as Mr. Herbert Lacy, and I don't think I had been 
 under the moral training of the Misses Thimblebee more 
 than three months before I had almost entirely forgotten my 
 former drawing-master, and — to confess the truth — had fallen 
 half in love with a young gentleman — the brother of one of 
 my schoolfellows — whom I had never even set eyes upon. 
 
 I couldn't have been at Chesterfield House above one quarter 
 when a new girl came, of the name of Margaret Soojee, and 
 by that time I had got so much into the way of the school, 
 that, strange to say, I found myself asking her whether she 
 had a brother? and when she told me she had one who was just 
 turned seventeen, I in my turn wanted to know what kind of 
 a person he was; and inquired most minutely into the shape 
 
 D 
 
34 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 and colour of his different features. Whereupon, I declare, she 
 gave me such a glowing description of what she called her dear 
 Phil's looks, and curled his flaxen hair, and lit up his blue 
 eyes, and chiselled his Grecian nose so beautifully for him, 
 that upon my word, I was so taken with the representation 
 she had given me, that I found myself getting every day 
 greater and greater friends with her, and walking about the 
 play-ground with my arm round her waist, listening to her 
 telling me of all his tricks and ways, while I endeavoured to 
 find out, whether he had ever displayed any attachment to 
 any young lady of their acquaintance; and when I heard he 
 was rather partial to a game of romps with his cousin 'Tilda, 
 I found myself conceiving a most bitter hatred for such a de- 
 signing tomboy, as I knew that 'Tilda must be. Sometimes I 
 would ask her whether Mr. Philip liked dark beauties, and 
 when she told me that she thought his taste did run that way, 
 I made her promise, that w r hen she next wrote to him, she 
 would speak of me in the letter, and tell him that I had got 
 long black hair and large black eyes. On her consenting to do 
 so — like a dear — I asked her how soon she intended to write to 
 him, and on learning from her that she didn't think she should 
 write to him for a w^eek or so at least, I couldn't help saying 
 that if he loved her, as much as she said he did, of course he 
 couldn't but feel anxious to know whether she was comfortable 
 or not in her new school, and that I thought that she really 
 ought to wnrite as soon as she possibly could. 
 
 "Well, like a love, she wrote the very next day; and I got 
 her to let me see what she had said about me in the letter, 
 when, I declare, if the darling hadn't written such a number 
 of fine things about her little gipsy of a black-eyed friend of 
 a Lotty de Roos! I felt the blood rush tingling into my 
 cheeks while I read them, and told her I'd do the same for 
 her if she chose, when I wrote to my brother Edmund, only 
 he was such a nasty selfish disposition, that I knew she 
 wouldn't like him any more than I did. 
 
 The letter once posted, I couldn't do a thing until the 
 answer came, and, when it did, if Mr. Philip hadn't sent his 
 love to me in a postscript, which, I couldn't help saying, was 
 like his impudence indeed; adding, that I should like to know, 
 too, what business he had to call me Lotty; so I made Meggie 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 35 
 
 write back as soon as she could, and say that she had given 
 his love to me, and that I had blushed my deepest crimson on 
 the receipt of it. 
 
 All play-hours we did nothing but talk together about her 
 brother "Phil," as Meggie called him; and she would tell me 
 how he very often took her out walking, and would sometimes 
 treat her to an ice, and as many Bath buns as she could eat, — 
 and how he would get them tickets for the play — and how he 
 had made her a present of a dear little duck of a Skye terrier 
 that would sit and beg for anything — and how he used to 
 bring her home toffy and chocolate drops, and shoulders of 
 mutton and ends of candles, and things in sugar, and all kinds 
 of sweeties — and how he wasn't at all friends with his papa, 
 because he wanted a latch-key, and his papa said that eleven 
 o'clock was quite late enough for a boy like him to stop out of 
 an evening, which hurt his pride so, that he said that he 
 could never either forget or forgive the insult. No sooner 
 had I heard that he wasn't friends with his father, than I at 
 once settled in my mind that he was a poor dear persecuted 
 love, and felt more convinced than ever that all fathers were 
 tyrants, and only lived to see how much they could thwart 
 the wishes of their children. After this, I must needs go 
 setting to work, making a crimson silk purse, with plenty of 
 steel beads about it; and when it was done, I put some wool 
 at the ends of it, and gave it dear Meggie, saying, that if she 
 would promise — 'pon her word and honour — not to tell I had 
 made it, she might send it as a present to her brother Phil, 
 merely observing, that one of the young ladies had worked it 
 for him, and she'd leave him to guess which. But, I declare, if 
 the naughty puss didn't go telling him outright whose handi- 
 work it was, which put me in such a puff, that I vowed I'd 
 never forgive her as long as I lived. From that time forward, I 
 don't think Meggie ever had a letter from her brother with- 
 out there being at least a whole page in it about me; and 
 either he would be wanting to know whether Meggie and I 
 ever went out walking alone together, or else, whether 
 Meggie couldn't get her mamma to invite me to spend a day or 
 two at their house. He was positively dying to see me so, — 
 poor dear young man! 
 
 In this way we went on, as Meggie couldn't get her 
 d 2 
 
36 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 ma to ask me home until the holidays, when she said she 
 should be happy to see me. But as I was dying quite as 
 much to see Mr. Philip, as he was dying to see me, and I 
 couldn't wait all that time, I got my mamma to ask Meggie 
 to spend a Sunday with me at oar house. As soon as it was 
 arranged, Meggie wrote to Philip, telling him all about it, 
 and directing him to call on that Sunday afternoon, and ask 
 leave to take us both out for a walk in the Park. When the 
 day came, and he called, I was never so astonished in all my 
 life; for instead of seeing the great, strapping, big- whiskered 
 young man I had imagined him to be, I declare if he didn't 
 look quite a mere boy, as fair as a girl, and with about as 
 much hair on his cheeks as there is on a caterpillar's back. 
 Though I had told Meggie that I would give it him well, the 
 first time I saw him, fur the impudent messages he had sent 
 me, and though he had written to Meggie, saying, that the 
 iirst time lie saw me he would have a good flirtation w T ith me, 
 yet I declare neither he nor I, after our introduction, dared 
 say a word, or even look at each other; but there we sat as 
 silent as snow — he admiring the shape of his boots, and knock- 
 ing his leg with his little cane; while I kept pulling a pink to 
 pieces leaf by leaf, and doing " loves me" " loves me not" all 
 the time to myself, — and I wasn't sorry when Mamma came 
 into the room, and gave me permission to go out walking 
 with him and his sister. Once out of the house, and with 
 Meggie's help, we grew more and more intimate, so that by 
 the time we had reached home, I declare I thought him quite 
 an angel, and I dare say he thought equally highly of me. 
 
 When I got back to school, we commenced a regular cor- 
 respondence through Meggie, and he used to send me letters 
 at least twice a week, breathing the fondest affection, and 
 smelling strongly of cigar smoke. It wasn't more than a 
 fortnight, too, before we indulged in the customary exchange 
 of locks of hair. I also sent him a crimson velvet pin-cushion, 
 in the shape of a heart, tilled with bran, and he sent me a 
 beautiful red cornelian ornament of the same shape, with a 
 love of a little gold ring through it, so as to hang it round 
 my neck. 
 
 At last, thank goodness, there was a prospect of seeing him 
 again. The Misses Thimblebee. on the evening before the 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 37 
 
 pupils went home for the holidays, always gave a grand even- 
 ing party, when the prizes were distributed before the com- 
 pany, which consisted of the mammas, papas, and brothers of 
 the different pupils. To this party Philip was asked, and, 
 like a love, came looking so interesting and genteel that the 
 more I looked at him and thought of Mr. Lacy, I couldn't 
 help saying to myself, that my taste was as different from 
 what it had been not six months before as Philip was from 
 Herbert. Need I tell my lady readers how, behind the win- 
 dow-curtains, we were all fondness, and how, before them, we 
 were all coolness; or how, after he had danced four quadrilles 
 running with me, he could prevail upon none of the other 
 young ladies to dance with him; and how I could see in him 
 nothing but good, and the other young ladies could see in him 
 nothing at all. 
 
 While Mr. Jabez Thimblebee — who was a professor of the 
 double-base viol, as well as a distinguished performer at a 
 chapel of ease at Ball's Pond, and who had kindly brought his 
 viol with him, — was delighting the company with his admired 
 pastoral symphony of " The Country Farm-yard," and mak- 
 ing the instrument speak, with several wonderful imitations 
 of the various domestic animals introduced in the piece — 
 while Mr. Jabez Thimblebee was doing this, Mr. Soojee was 
 vowing, in solemn whispers, behind the window-curtain, that 
 he w r ould not leave me that evening, until I had given him 
 my promise that when he came to fetch his sister Meggie on 
 the morrow — which he would do precisely at one o'clock, — I 
 would grant him one short secret interview in the cloak-room. 
 What could I do but promise? and, having promised, what 
 could I do but keep my word? 
 
 Precisely at one there I was in the cloak-room, sitting on 
 the old sofa there, with its deep valance hanging from it, to 
 hide the well underneath it — for in Miss Thimblebee's less 
 prosperous days it had done the double duty of sofa and bed- 
 stead. I was looking at the engravings in the last year's 
 " Book of Beauty," and had just got to the portrait of the 
 lovely Honourable Miss Lilian Toplady, en dishabille, with 
 her morning-wrapper carelessly thrown open in front, so as 
 to display as much of her beautiful neck and shoulders as she 
 could, while her hair all loose was streaming down her back, 
 
38 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 when Philip rushed into the room. After inquiring whether 
 I had dreamed of him last night, and I had desired him to 
 go along with him, for I wasn't going to tell him, he pro- 
 ceeded to relate to me an extraordinary and highly compli- 
 mentary dream he had had about me, and he had just got to 
 the bar of the Old Bailey, where he was being tried for his 
 life, for having begged of the Emperor of Russia to get his 
 father to allow him a latch-key, and was just describing to 
 me his surprise at seeing me in a full-bottomed wig and gown, 
 seated on the bench, playing a hit at backgammon with his 
 uncle William, when, goodness gracious me! I heard the 
 voice of Miss Prudence on the first landing, saying, " Miss 
 de Roos, are you up stairs?" 
 
 " There's Miss Thimblebee looking for me, as I live !" I cried, 
 " and she will be here in a minute, I know. Oh, Philip, 
 Philip! hide yourself underneath the sofa; there's a dear!" 
 
 The words were no sooner out of my mouth, than I remem- 
 bered that, being a sofa-bedstead, it was impossible for him to 
 get under it, and immediately it struck me that the well at 
 the bottom of it was the very place to put him in. Lifting 
 up the cushion and grating, I got him to jump into it; and 
 very luckily! for I declare I had only just got to the door, 
 when there I met Miss Thimblebee in the passage outside. 
 Perceiving me, she said, " She had been looking for me every- 
 where; for she wanted to ask me when I first went into the 
 deportment class, as she was making out my bill?" Being 
 rather stout, and afflicted with a difficulty of breathing, the 
 coming up stairs had made Miss Prudence pant so, that, to 
 my horror, I saw her move towards the sofa, and, goodness 
 gracious me! go to sit down upon it. No sooner had she 
 sunk down upon the cushion, than Philip — who would not 
 lie down at the bottom of the well, but would remain upon 
 his hands and knees, though I told him at the time it pre- 
 vented the grating from shutting close down, — received the 
 whole of Miss Prudence's weight on his back, and uttered a 
 long and prolonged " O-o-o-o-o-ooh!" Up jumped Miss P. 
 Thimblebee, and, making for the door, she rushed down stairs, 
 screaming out, " There's a man in the sofa-bedstead — there's 
 a man in the sofa-bedstead! Grace, Grace, there's a man in 
 the sofa-bedstead!" 
 
m 
 
 o£/Lf d^uicu^z^A^ce^. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 39 
 
 I was too frightened to stop; so I rushed up stairs to my 
 bed-room, and stood outside the door listening to the sequel. 
 Presently up came the whole school, armed with brooms, and 
 headed by the two Miss Thimblebees, one with a poker, and 
 the other with the breakfast-room toasting-fork; and what 
 was my surprise at hearing them, about five minutes after- 
 wards, returning from the room, declaring that there was no 
 man to be found there after all. Every one agreed, that 
 the cry Miss Prudence had heard must have been either 
 mere fancy, or else the creaking of the sofa; and when, on 
 my going down, Miss Thimblebee consulted me on the sub- 
 ject, and asked if I heard the cry — like a wicked story — I 
 declared I didn't hear anything of the kind. This having 
 convinced, as well as quieted them all, I, at the first oppor- 
 tunity, crept back to the cloak-room to see if I could find out 
 whatever could have become of poor Philip. Opening the 
 door very gently, I put my head in, and said in a whisper, 
 " Philip, Philip, where have you got to?" — " Here," he re- 
 plied; but where that "here" was I couldn't make out. It 
 wasn't the sofa, I knew; and I put my hand up the chimney 
 thinking the " Here " might be there. So I said again, 
 "Philip, whereabouts are you?" "Here," he repeated;' and 
 this time, I could have declared, the voice proceeded from 
 the inside of Mr. Jabez Thimblebee's great big double-base 
 viol case, which was standing up in the corner of the room. 
 Going towards it, I opened the lid, and there found the little 
 fellow stowed away in it, as compact as a chicken in an egg 
 shell, and with his head so firmly fixed in the narrow top 
 part of it, that he could hardly move it — " Oh you clever 
 dear angel!" I couldn't help exclaiming; "but where have 
 you put the great big fiddle to?" — " In the bottom drawer of 
 the wardrobe," he said in a whisper. — " Well, you are a dar- 
 ling," I replied; " only remain quiet where you are for a few 
 minutes longer, and then all will be safe." So I shut the lid 
 again, and hooked it to prevent his coming out before the 
 time; and down I went into the school-room again. I could 
 not have been down stairs a quarter of an hour before, hearing 
 the street-door slam to, I went to the window to see who 
 had gone out, when I discovered that it was Mr. Jabez Thim- 
 blebee who was getting into a cab at the door; and, oh hor- 
 
40 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Tor! there, on the box beside the driver, stood the dreadful 
 case of the double-base viol, in which I had fastened my 
 poor dear unfortunate little wretch of a Philip! This was 
 more than I had strength to bear, so I rushed up stairs to 
 Miss Grace Thirnblebee, and, throwing myself at her feet, 
 confessed the whole affair to her. No sooner had she heard 
 my tale, than she gave a scream, and cried out, " Good 
 Heavens! and Jabez is going by the very next train to 
 the Manchester Festival, and only called here to take his 
 base-viol with him; oh! the young man will be smothered 
 alive, and we shall be all ruined. Go and put on your 
 bonnet directly, you wicked, wicked girl, for our only hope is 
 to catch him at the Euston-square station !" Then off we all 
 hurried together, I in hysterics, Miss Prudence in a terrible 
 fright, and Miss Grace in a towering passion. When we got 
 to the station, who can depict the horror of the whole three 
 of us. at finding that the train had just started! and that a 
 gentleman with a double-base viol was very well remem- 
 bered by one of the porters, who carried the case for him to 
 the carriage, to have been among the passengers to Man- 
 chester!!!! 
 
 On this, Miss Thirnblebee said, that it was now her duty 
 to take me on to the residence of Mr. Soojee, sen., and having 
 made him acquainted with the painful circumstances, leave 
 him to hand me over to justice; adding, that I should cer- 
 tainly have to answer for the life of that young man at the 
 bar of the Old Bailey. When we arrived at Mr. Soojee's, 
 as poor Philip's father was out, Miss Thirnblebee requested 
 to see his wretched mother, immediately, on important busi- 
 ness. No sooner had she broken the dreadful news to her, 
 in as gentle a manner as possible, than the poor, fond lady 
 went off into the most violent hysterics I ever saw in all my 
 life; and I no sooner saw the agony which I had caused this 
 good woman to suffer, than I went off into violent hysterics 
 as well; and our combined agony, together with the 
 prospect of the speedy ruin of their school, had such a sym- 
 pathetic effect upon the nerves of the Misses Thimblebees, 
 that they went off into violent hysterics too. In the midst of 
 this dreadful scene, a double-knock came at the door, and 
 who should walk into the room but young Mr. Philip Soojee 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 41 
 
 himself, who, to our great surprise, informed us, that, finding 
 somebody — after having nailed a card on the top of the double- 
 base viol case in which he was confined, was proceeding to 
 lock it, he thought it was high time to cry out, and let the 
 party know that he was inside instead of the instrument. On 
 being released, he found the gentleman disposed to be angry 
 at his being there; he quieted him by apologizing, saying, 
 that he had been playing at hide-and-seek with his sister, and 
 had taken the liberty of putting his instrument in the bottom 
 drawer of the wardrobe, and his own body in its place. After 
 the gentleman had gone, he had still remained hid in the 
 room for fear of getting me into trouble, until at last an op- 
 portunity had offered for his escape, which he had effected 
 as rapidly as he possibly could. 
 
 After this, the Misses Thimblebee obliged me by accom- 
 panying me home to my mamma, and having politely in- 
 formed her of all that had occurred, told her that they were 
 sorry to be forced to decline ever receiving me again into 
 the highly moral precincts of Chesterfield House. At first, 
 mamma was very angry about it, but she was so very fond of 
 me, that I could do almost anything I pleased with her. So 
 by coaxing and kissing her, and assuring her that I would 
 never do it again, and reminding her that she had once been 
 a girl herself, I at last got her to promise that she wouldn't 
 tell papa, for I couldn't bear to offend him. The very kind- 
 ness of his reproofs made me fear his displeasure more than 
 all my mother's weak and intemperate scoldings. "Ah!" 
 she said, after she had nearly forgiven me, " I don't know 
 what will become of you, Lotty, if you go on in this stupid, 
 imprudent way. To think of a girl with accomplishments 
 and personal attractions like yours, to go and throw herself away 
 upon the first man who falls in love with her; why, it is a down- 
 right wicked sin, it is; and it really seems as if the blessings of 
 Providence, and the advantages of a superior education, were 
 entirely lost upon you. Where is your pride? Where is 
 your proper self-esteem, I should like to know? And have 
 you no ambition? that you must needs waste all the graces, 
 both of your mind and figure, first upon some handsome 
 pauper of a drawing-master, and then upon some fortuneless, 
 whipper-snapper of a boy, who, however well connected, isn't 
 
42 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 entitled to a pennyworth of property, as far as you know, on 
 his coming of age. And you must be as well aware as I am, 
 that you might, by taking pains, and being only commonly 
 prudent, have the first nobleman in the land for your slave. 
 So remember, that although I look over your indiscretion 
 this time, still, beware how I find you carrying on any flirta- 
 tion, however innocent, with any young gentleman who has 
 neither possessions nor expectations again." 
 
 Yet with all mamma's scoldings, I couldn't bring myself to 
 think that it was my fault — foolish, innocent, artless girl that 
 I was then. For it was but natural that I — scarcely seven- 
 teen — surrounded with a whole schoolful of giddy girls, who 
 laid awake half the night, talking of sweethearts and hus- 
 bands to come, and who w^ere all as ready as I was for a game 
 of romps with Cupid; it was but natural, I say, — when an op- 
 portunity offered for playing at blindman's-buff with young 
 Love, — that I, more imprudent than the rest, though shrink- 
 ing, like them, with timid coyness, from the blind god's 
 clutches, still should be the first to be caught, and being 
 caught should be the first to be blinded in the true spirit of 
 
 the game. 
 
 ****** 
 
 It was strange how true my father's words came. I now 
 began to find that the sentiments which I had once thought 
 the beauty of life, I every day got to fancy more and more 
 the folly of it. Scarcely a month went over my head but I 
 felt myself a different girl, with different tastes, aims, and 
 opinions from the month which preceded it. The Misses 
 Thimblebees had taught me to look down upon even the 
 wealthy tradesman with abhorrence, and I had progressed so 
 far in the morals of " the superior classes," as to have learnt 
 from my mother's continual lecturings, that even the gentle- 
 man unblessed with an abundance of wealth, though he might 
 pass as a tolerable acquaintance, still was not a desirable con- 
 nexion. And it was not long before a circumstance occurred 
 which went far to fix those principles in my mind. 
 
 One day, when papa returned from his professional visits, 
 as we sat alone in the parlour, previous to dinner, he told me 
 he had seen a most distressing case of poverty in his rounds 
 that morning; and that he had been so interested in the poor 
 

AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 43 
 
 creature, who seemed to have known better days, that finding 
 that she endeavoured to earn her living by her needle, he had 
 told her to call at the house the next day for some work. He 
 then begged of me to see if I could not find something for 
 her to do, and also to look out any warmer clothing that I 
 could spare for her, as he was afraid, from even the little he 
 had seen of her, that she wanted it sadly. 
 
 On the morrow when she came, I was but little prepared 
 for the misery I perceived — for, with the quickness of a 
 woman's eye, I read want in her dress. Though the snow 
 was on the ground, and it was as much as I could do to keep 
 myself warm, even by the blazing fire-side of our snug little 
 music-room, still she wore a light summer gown, that was so 
 thin that it made me shiver to look at it, while the only cover- 
 ing that she had to her shoulders was a rusty-black silk scarf. 
 And yet her clothes were put on with exquisite grace, and 
 there was a something about her appearance that convinced 
 me some sad change must have come over her. Her face was 
 so pale and delicate, that it almost looked like a white china 
 vase, with a faint light behind it — her teeth were so white 
 and regular — her nose so exquisitely shaped and transparent 
 — her hair, too, so tidily arranged and silk-like — and when she 
 took her old-crumpled glove off, her hand was so beautifully 
 small and fair, that I saw at a glance that she was no com- 
 mon sempstress. 
 
 I felt quite a sympathy for the poor thing, and begged of 
 her to take a seat near the fire; yet, with her teeth almost 
 chattering, she assured me she was not cold. But it was 
 so clear that she was afraid of acknowledging as much, for 
 fear of drawing attention to her slender clothing, that I would 
 make her do as I' requested. Scarcely could she have sat 
 there five minutes, before I saw her head and hands drop — 
 the poor half-frozen thing had fainted from the heat of the 
 fire. When I had removed her bonnet, and unloosed her 
 dress, I was horror-stricken at the wretched scantiness of her 
 under-clothing; and when she came to herself, and found her 
 dress open, I could tell by her sudden blushing, she knew I 
 must have discovered how miserably she was clothed. Though 
 I had looked out some few articles of warm clothing, and had 
 them in the room ready to give her, still, from her evident 
 
44 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 sensitiveness on this subject, I was so fearful of offending 
 her, and stammered so, and offered them to her in so un- 
 gracious a manner, that I could see her bite her under lip as 
 she felt her tears start into her eyes, and said, " I thank you 
 extremely, but I came for work, and not for charity" — adding, 
 that if I would let her have what I wanted her to do, she 
 would feel obliged, as her husband had requested her to return 
 home as soon as possible. 
 
 I gave her the needlework, and she left, thanking me, and 
 promising me that I should have it in a day or two, as I 
 wished. But a week and a fortnight passed without my seeing 
 her, and I at last began to imagine that I had bestowed my 
 sympathy upon one of the many dexterous impostors of the 
 alleys of London. 1 told papa as much, when he said that 
 perhaps the illness of her child, or, might-be, her own delicate 
 health, had prevented her doing the work in the limited time 
 — adding, that he thought I had better step on to her lodgings 
 that morning, and inquire into the cause of the delay myself. 
 
 She lived in a miserable court running out of Tottenham- 
 court-road; and as I went up the dark and close-smelling stair- 
 case to her second-floor, I trembled at finding myself in such a 
 place. When I entered the room, I don't know which struck 
 me most — the wretchedness or the cleanliness of the apart- 
 ment. In one corner stood a bedstead, and from the thin 
 fold of the sheet, which was turned down over the patchwork 
 counterpane, I knew directly that there was not a blanket 
 upon it. In another corner, her little invalid son lay stretched 
 upon a mattress on the ground, with an old flannel petticoat 
 wrapt round his limbs to keep him warm. Across the room, 
 on a string suspended from wall to wall, hung a few stockings, 
 and other articles of wearing apparel, to dry. There were 
 but two wooden chairs; one of them, with its broken back 
 roughly mended with string, was by the sick boy's side, with 
 a cup on it, while seated on the other, by a deal table, 
 and close to the small shovelful of fire in the grate, was the 
 sempstress herself. As she turned her head round to see 
 who entered, I perceived that one of her eyes had been 
 bruised since she was with me, and no sooner did she see me 
 at the door, than, starting up, she raised her handkerchief to 
 her face; and observing that the disfigurement attracted my 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 45 
 
 notice, she told me — with such hesitation, that I knew it was 
 an untruth — that she had had an accident, and knocked her 
 eye against the door. 
 
 " You have come for the work you gave me," she said; 
 "yes, I know I have been very remiss. I ought to have 
 brought it home before, but — the fact is — a — a — " 
 
 " You have had illness in the house," I added, endeavouring 
 to help her. 
 
 " No — it was not that — but — " and she burst into tears. 
 
 " Come, come, my good lady," I continued, " do not vex 
 yourself; I am not in a hurry for it, and next week, or even 
 the week after that, will be time enough for me. Now, come, 
 be candid with me — you are in distress. Tell me, can I be 
 of any assistance to you ?" 
 
 " No, thank you," she replied, with a quiver of the lip; " I 
 can assure you we are not in distress, however much appear- 
 ances — a — a — , and we do not require assistance yet." 
 
 " Yes, but I know you do" I added; " though you cannot 
 bring yourself to confess it." 
 
 " Madam, I said I did not require assistance," she replied, 
 rising, " and surely I am not sunk so low that my word can- 
 not be received." 
 
 My woman's curiosity w r as so piqued to learn who she 
 could possibly have been, that I sat there talking about the 
 illness of her child, and twisting the conversation into a 
 hundred different channels, in the hope she would let drop 
 something that would give me a clue to her history. At last, 
 just as I was about to take my leave in despair, her husband 
 staggered into the apartment. He was a man whose coarse- 
 ness and grossness of feature contrasted wonderfully with 
 hers; and yet, notwithstanding his high cheek bones and 
 unshorn chin, and sodden complexion, there was something 
 in the expression of his blue eyes and manly figure, that 
 made me fancy that at one time he must have been almost 
 handsome. 
 
 " Now, Georgiana," he said, in a husky thick voice, "have 
 you got any tin, cos if you has, hand it over." 
 
 " Don't you see there is a stranger present?" she answered, 
 biting her lips at the idea of my being a witness to the scene. 
 
 " Strangers be hanged!" he replied, looking first at me 
 
46 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 and then at his wife; " I want some money, I tell you; those 
 cursed skittles has regularly cleaned me out. So, come, hand 
 us over a bob, and take that hankercher from that black eye 
 I guv you for your stinginess last Tuesday. Where's the 
 odds of her knowing on it? She's got a father and mother, I 
 dare say, and understands these matters. There, you needn't 
 look so plaguy proud — though yer are the Honourable Mrs. 
 Duggan. Come, are you going to give me that money, or 
 am I'to make you?" 
 
 " I have none," she returned, with a shudder. 
 
 "None of your lies!" he answered, brutally; "but hand 
 
 the money over this minute, or else, s'help me, I'll " and 
 
 he shook his burly fist in her trembling face, in continuation 
 of the sentence. 
 
 " Here ! here, my good man !" I almost shrieked out with 
 fright, " here is some money; it is all I've got. but do go — 
 oh"! dor 
 
 " Well, now I've got all I come for, I don't mind if I does," 
 he replied, looking at me. " You see, miss, it's my turn at 
 the Coach and Horses to have a quartern in; and I can't 
 abear, when I been drinking all the morning at other genel- 
 men's expense, not to do the thing what's right, and be my 
 share towards keeping up the spree." 
 
 " Yes, of course — I know," I answered; " but do please 
 leave us alone here together." 
 
 u That's enough, miss! I'm o-p-h," he said. " So good day 
 to you, miss, and good day to you, the Honourable Mrs. 
 Duo-oran" — and out he reeled again. 
 
 Co O 
 
 I couldn't help noticing the struggle that was going on in 
 his poor wife's breast during all this frightful scene. And 
 directly her husband left the room, despite all her exertions, 
 the tears flooded her eyes. I rose to console her; and on 
 going up to her, she fell upon my bosom, and wept like a 
 child. 
 
 Presently she raised her head, saying, " There, that has 
 done me good; tell me, noiv can you guess who I am?" 
 
 " I know enough, my poor one," I replied, " to know that 
 you are suffering from some imprudent alliance." 
 
 " Imprudent! it was a mad — downright mad one!" she ex- 
 claimed with bitterness. " To think that I, the daughter of an 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 47 
 
 earl, should have united myself to my father's gardener's son! 
 But desperately — idolatrously I loved him; and for him I 
 braved the fearful rage of father — mother — all. And what 
 was my reward? Why, when my husband found every one 
 of my many supplications for forgiveness spurned by my 
 haughty parents, and even the door of my former home shut 
 for ever against me, then he — seeing how he had been foiled 
 in the ambitious game he had played, and that instead of the 
 rich heiress he had expected, he had only an expensive 
 pauper for his wife — then he, I say, reeked his vengeance on 
 me, and then began the long series of such sufferings and 
 privations, as even I who have suffered them cannot so much 
 as shadow out to you." 
 
 " But wouldn't his father do something for you?" I asked. 
 
 " What could he do?" she replied. " Dismissed from his 
 situation — ruined through my marriage with his son — (for 
 my father, of course, suspected he had connived at it,) how 
 could we expect support from him? And yet we might have 
 been far beyond want, had my husband only permitted me to 
 exercise the accomplishments that had been heaped upon me 
 at home. But to drown the vexation he felt at the fearful 
 mistake he had made, he flew to drink, and soon lost in the 
 bottle all power of exertion. When he had drunk up all the 
 trinkets I had carried with me in my flight, he began taking 
 my dresses from me, one by one, and converting them into 
 more money for more liquor; until at last I was forced, from 
 the very want of proper clothing, to discontinue giving the 
 lessons which were our only means of subsistence. 
 
 " But if he has treated you thus badly," I replied, " why 
 not have left him?" 
 
 "I could not — he would not leave me" she answered; 
 "that was all I wanted — all I asked of him. But no, he 
 knew he was entitled to all I earned, and that I must work if 
 it was only for my child; so as he was too idle to keep himself, 
 he was but too glad to be kept by me. And yet, notwith- 
 standing all this, I could have loved him — ay, and did love 
 him like a dog, even though he beat me like a dog. But 
 when, in the wantonness of his dissipation, he dared to bring 
 his degraded companions to my home, my whole woman's na- 
 ture rose up and rebelled against it, and I hated him as in- 
 
48 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 tensely — madly as I once had loved him. And now, you may 
 fancy how gladly I would leave him if I could. But oh, 
 Heavens, I cannot! Often and often have I fled with my 
 child in the night to save myself from further wrong, and 
 my poor boy from the pollution of his father's example; but 
 the hound has tracked me out so soon, that I now see how 
 foolish it is to hope ever in this life to be rid of him." 
 
 " Poor, poor lady," I half said to myself. 
 
 " Oh, you know not how sweet it is to find one consoling 
 voice," she continued calmly, as the tears flowed anew, 
 — " friends all, have turned from me, and yours are the first 
 kind tones 1 have heard for years. Indeed, indeed, you cannot 
 tell what I have suffered from that man! The very work t/ou 
 gave me, he took by force from my drawer, and pawned to 
 get more gin. You may look, little lady, but the worst is yet 
 untold. The drink your work procured him only made him 
 mad for more — ay, and he would have it — though I told him 
 he had swallowed every rag that was of any value in the place. 
 Suddenly, the wedding-ring on my finger caught his eye, 
 and even that he wanted to take from me — that, the only 
 outward sign I had to distinguish me from his wretched female 
 companions. I told him I would not let him have it. He 
 threatened blows. Still I told him he should not have it. 
 He sought to force it from me. I struggled with him, and 
 the coward finding how tightly I grasped the sole remaining 
 token of my honour, struck me in the face — with what force 
 the bruise still remaining there will tell you — and as I lay 
 senseless on the ground, he robbed me of my ring." 
 
 I was so moved by the wretched history I had heard, that 
 I couldn't help weeping with her. And I would not leave 
 her, until I had got her to promise that she would hence- 
 forth look upon any little service I might have it in my power 
 to render her, not in the light of charity, but of friendship. 
 
 Early on the morrow 1 went again to see her, to consult 
 with her as to how I could best befriend her; but to my great 
 sorrow I found that she had left shortly after daybreak; but 
 whether to avoid her husband's ill-treatment, or my assist- 
 ance, always remained a mystery to me, though from that time 
 forward, I never forgot her fearful history of The unequal 
 Marriage. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 49 
 
 OFFER THE THIRD. 
 
 THIS WAS AS GOOD AN OFFER AS ANY YOUNG GIRL COULD REASON- 
 ABLY EXPECT — IT SEEMED TO PROMISE VERY FAIRLY INDEED AT 
 ONE TIME, BUT THE COURSE OF TRUE LOVE (AS THE READER 
 VERY WELL KNOWS) NEVER DID RUN SMOOTH, AND MINE MET 
 WITH SO MANY OBSTACLES, THAT UPON MY WORD IT WAS A PER- 
 FECT CASCADE OF CALAMITY. 
 
 The incident detailed at the end of the preceding chapter 
 took so violent a hold of my mind, that, trained as it had been 
 by the Misses Thimblebee, and that training strengthened 
 by my mother's pleasing appeals to my vanity and ambition, 
 I determined it should not be my fault if I did not marry 
 above my station rather than under it. And this determina- 
 tion so pervaded my mind, that I couldn't help saying as 
 much to Papa, after I had described to him the scene I had 
 witnessed, and the tale I had heard from his poor sempstress. 
 
 " Lotty," he answered, " do you recollect, not many months 
 back, my telling you that before a twelvemonth had passed, 
 I should hear you ridiculing the sentiments which you then 
 thought the beauty of life?" 
 
 "Yes, Papa," I replied; "and you called me a silly ro- 
 mantic girl, and so I'm thoroughly convinced I was — a very 
 silly, silly, romantic girl then." 
 
 " Then!" he echoed. " And do you think, Lotty, that you 
 are very much wiser now?" 
 
 " Yes," I answered: " I've grown this much wiser, Papa, — 
 I wouldn't marry the handsomest man under the sun, unless 
 he was at least an independent gentleman, with a fortune 
 large enough to allow me to have my carriage, and my opera- 
 box to myself." 
 
 * And this, Lotty," he replied, sternly, " you bring forward 
 as a proof of your superior wisdom. Indeed, my good girl, I 
 am afraid you are retrograding instead of progressing in 
 sound sense." 
 
 "Why, Papa," I answered, surprised; "your own words 
 were, that something more than love was required to consti- 
 tute a happy union." 
 
 E 
 
50 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Yes, but Lotty," he said, " I never gave my child to 
 understand, that something less than love would do so. I 
 sincerely hope that you are ignorant of the impropriety of 
 the sentiments that you now profess. Not a year ago, and 
 you were all truth and enthusiasm, and now I hear you re- 
 solving to make your whole life a snare, a trick, and a lie. 
 My little girl, what on earth do you think matrimony is? 
 Does it merely consist in the solemn promise of a certain 
 man to share his worldly possessions with a certain woman? 
 And if not in merely this, what is the woman to give the man 
 in return? Is the sacrifice to be all on one side? If so, there 
 is but one unmentionable name for it !" 
 
 " Yes, but father, you put such strange constructions upon 
 my words,'' I answered, blushing. " Of course I mean that 
 I shouldn't marry the gentleman unless I loved him." 
 
 '•' It is there I have my doubts, Lotty," he replied. " You 
 may put in the moral saving clause now, but when you have 
 angled for your carriage and your opera box with real love 
 as your bait, you will, after a time, like other anglers, bait with 
 something so cunningly like the real thing, that it will catch 
 almost as well; and the poor tricked fish will find to his cost 
 too late, that he has been taken by what is only artificial, 
 after all." 
 
 " Never, father! Never so long as Hive!" I cried. 
 
 " You said those very words, Lotty, about ten months 
 ago," he replied; " and how can I believe you now, when I 
 find you professing principles, that you yourself would have 
 hated then ?" 
 
 " Believe in my honour, father," I exclaimed; " believe in 
 my virtue. Is not that sufficient assurance for you?" 
 
 '•'"We shall see, Lotty! We shall see!" was all his answer. 
 
 About this period, I found I began to take longer and 
 longer to dress; and yet, whatever time I might have been 
 at my toilet, still I was never thoroughly satisfied with my- 
 self when I was forced to finish it. I would sit by the hour 
 before my glass, doing my hair in all kinds of ways: first, 
 trying how I looked with it curled like Mamma's, en sau- 
 
^wvi^T^^UflM^-i^ 
 
 ■s?Z<3^7Z>& sz^o^e-Z/ fz*l4z/. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 51 
 
 cisson. When I fancied that was too matronly for me, 
 doing it in two small bunches of ringlets, and immediately 
 afterwards brushing them out again, when I thought of 
 their getting out of curl, and hanging down each side of my 
 face like spaniels' ears. Then I'd turn it all back " a la 
 Chinoise" so as to show off my forehead, with two little pets 
 of " accroches cceurs" gummed to my cheek bones, till I de- 
 clare my head looked as round and sleek as a bird's. If that 
 didn't please me, I'd pull it all down again, and set to work, 
 first doing it " en bandeaux" or else in braids, or else " a la 
 Madonna" and sometimes wishing to gracious that I had 
 only wetted my front hair, and plaited it tight over night, 
 so as to have given it a beautiful wavy appearance, and 
 made it look as if it had a natural curl in it. After this, 
 I'd tell our Mary I thought, as there was going to be no 
 one particular to dinner, I'd wear my aventurine merino; 
 and then, before she'd time to get it out — No, I wouldn't. As 
 I looked rather pale, I might as well put on my pink striped 
 mousseline de laine ; and as soon as I had got that on, and 
 taken a peep at myself in the glass, I'd change my mind 
 again, and determine to wear my beautiful silk Macgregor 
 plaid, especially as somebody might drop in in the evening, 
 and the body of that old mouslin was so shockingly high, that 
 I shouldn't like any visitor to see me in it. And then, when 
 at last I was dressed, first this band didn't seem to go well 
 with it, then that one wouldn't do a bit better; and now 
 this worked collar didn't please me, and next I could never 
 wear that fichu : and so I would go on fiddle-faddling over 
 my looking-glass until the upstairs bell had rung at least half 
 a dozen times for dinner. Even then, though I knew they 
 must have finished the soup, and that I should catch it for 
 being late, still I couldn't, for the life of me, help slipping into 
 Mamma's room on my way down, and just arranging her two 
 beautiful cheval glasses one in front of the other, so as to see 
 myself both before and behind, and to satisfy myself that my 
 skirt looked as nice and full as I liked. 
 
 But luckily I had always a good friend in Mamma, who 
 used to take my part, and tell Papa " he ought rather to 
 be pleased to see his daughter taking a proper pride in her 
 
 e 2 
 
52 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 appearance, instead of continually scolding the poor thing 
 for wasting what he called the best part of her life over her 
 looking-glass." Indeed, Mamma and I went on so comfort- 
 ably, that we were always together; and we used to go out 
 shopping, or — when we could get the carriage — paying visits 
 with one another. And we had all our dresses of the same 
 pattern, and made alike as if we were sisters, though, to tell 
 the truth, this didn't please me quite so much as it seemed to 
 please Mamma; for though it might take ten years off her 
 looks, I felt that it had the effect of putting them on to mine, and 
 every compliment upon her youthful appearance that she got 
 by it, I knew was a compliment at my expense; for if, as the 
 flattering old whist-players said, she looked young enough to 
 pass for my sister, of course it was as much as to say / looked 
 old enough to pass for hers. 
 
 Indeed, it was quite wonderful the pains Mamma used to 
 take with me. Scarcely a moment passed but she w^as telling 
 me what I ought to do, and what I oughtn't. First, I was the 
 stupidest thing alive, and never would take a look from her, 
 though she had been frowning at me ever so long, like a 
 beadle at church. Then I was her own dear girl, and if I 
 had learnt nothing else at Miss Thimblebee's, at least I'd 
 been taught to carry myself like an angel, and she was sure 
 any one to see me move past them would admit that that 
 walk of mine alone was worth the whole money. One morn- 
 ing it would be, the gifts of Providence and the blessing of 
 a superior education seemed to have been entirely thrown 
 away upon me. How I could ever have danced two quadrilles 
 running, last night, with that Mr. Belchambers, was more 
 than she could tell, when I knew as well as she did that the 
 man hadn't a sixpence beyond what he had to fag night 
 and day for. What on earth did I expect would become of 
 me, if I went on in that shameful way? Then another morn- 
 ing she would declare I w^as her own dear pet, I was. The 
 way in which I had yaltzed with that dear Sir Frederick 
 Lushington, who was one of the oldest and richest baronets 
 in the kingdom — and very luckily a widower — did her heart 
 good to see. "Bless you, my lamb!" she would say, "you 
 are your foolish fond mother's own dear child, you are, every 
 inch of you." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 53 
 
 But the worst of it all was, Mamma was always taking me 
 up so about my mode of talking; now I didn't sound this word 
 rightly, and then it wasn't considered elegant to pronounce 
 that word in the way I did. I recollect one morning, at 
 breakfast, asking her for another cup of coffee, with rather a 
 broad accent on the word. 
 
 " Kaitfee, Charlotte," she replied, " and pray what may 
 that mean, Miss ? I never recollect hearing the term used 
 before; but perhaps you may mean coffee, for that's the only 
 name I ever heard given to it. Really your father might just 
 as well have kept his money in his pocket, and never sent 
 you to school at all, for the good it seems to have done you." 
 
 " Why," I replied, quite innocently, " I thought that as 
 a-1 spelt al, and a-1-1 awl, so o-f spelt of, and o-f-f owf." 
 
 " And, I dare say," she answered, " g-l-a-s glas, and 
 g-l-a-ss glarce. But you'll please to think otherwise in future, 
 Miss; and remember that in polite society when we join a 
 quadrille we dannce, when we are pleased we laf, (though 
 smiling is more genteel, my dear,) when we have a cold we 
 cof, and when we take a promenade wewal-k; no, I'm wrong, 
 there we do wawk, yes, wawk like other people. So don't 
 let me hear any more of such vulgarisms from you in future. 
 And now, may I have the pleasure of sending you another 
 cup of cof-fee?' 
 
 " Thank you," I replied, " you are very kind!" 
 
 " A^ind, key'md ! if you love me, child," she answered, 
 throwing her hands up; " ^eyind; unless you wish to split your 
 poor dear mother's ears in two. Pray do be more attentive 
 to your pronunciation, my dear! for really it sets my teeth 
 quite on edge to hear you." 
 
 " Well, Mamma," I answered, " I will try and have more 
 regard for the future." 
 
 " Be — what is that?" she exclaimed, drawing in her 
 breath, as if in great bodily pain. " Gard, did I hear you 
 say, child? Oh! if you would not see your poor dear mother 
 fall senseless at your feet, do, do remember to call it re-^eard 
 
 for the future." 
 
 ****** 
 
 As the London season was drawing to a close, and as every 
 civilized person had flown from the horrid dust of London to 
 
54 WHOM TO MAEEY 
 
 the refreshing breezes of the sea-side, Mamma was seized with 
 her usual attack of low spirits, and I felt myself so weak and 
 delicate, that we both agreed that nothing but two or three 
 months at Brighton would restore our healths. So I used to 
 tell Papa that it was positively frightful to see how Mamma 
 was sinking every day for want of change of air, and that I 
 shouldn't like to answer for the consequences if she remained 
 much longer in London; and Mamma would in her turn 
 declare, that if she had to go down on her bended knees 
 and borrow the money of a mere stranger, we must go out 
 of town somewhere. She didn't speak for herself, though 
 she felt that she was every day sinking more and more for 
 want of a mouthful of fresh air, and indeed knew that each 
 week she remained boxed up in town at that season was as 
 good as ten long years off her life. But she could not, as a 
 mother, stand still, and see that dear dear Charlotte growing 
 as white as a plaster cast under her very eyes for the want of a 
 few weeks residence at some fashionable watering-place. And 
 she could and would tell him this, that however clever he 
 might think himself as a physician, still she, as a mother, 
 knew much more of her darling's constitution than he pos- 
 sibly could. And the end of it all was, that if he couldn't 
 afford the money for her to take me down to the sea-side, he 
 would be obliged, before long, to afford the money for my 
 funeral expenses, and that then — when it was too late — he'd 
 have the happiness of knowing that he had been the murderer 
 of his eldest and finest girl. 
 
 As we neither of us ever ate anything at dinner with Papa, 
 though we kept pressing each other to try as much as 
 would lie on a sixpence, and reminding one another that 
 exhausted nature must give way under the little nutri- 
 ment we took, Papa at last gave us his consent, and a cheque 
 to go down to Brighton. When Mamma had put the cheque 
 in her purse, she suddenly remembered that it was of no 
 use, for really and truly we hadn't a dress to put on, or a 
 bonnet that we could wear. For herself, of course, it didn't 
 matter how she went, so long as she was merely decent; 
 but it was her duty to see that her pet of a Charlotte, w T ho 
 had her way to make in the world, should at least be as 
 well dressed as other people's daughters. How, on earth, she 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 55 
 
 would ask him, did he, as a man possessing the smallest 
 amount of common sense, expect that his dear girl was ever 
 to get comfortably settled in life, unless she could keep pace 
 with other persons' daughters ? Mamma said she knew as well 
 as he did, that it was all mere pomp and vanity; but when 
 one's at Rome, one must do as Rome does; and really there 
 was such a struggle now-a-days, and so much competition in 
 the matrimonial market, that unless you made your girl look 
 as showy and attractive as possible, you wouldn't get a single 
 offer for her, and have the poor thing remaining on your 
 hands all your life. 
 
 As usual, Mamma managed to have her own way somehow, 
 and for my sake she first bought a beautiful white chip " pomp" 
 for herself, and a heavenly drawn silk one for me, and then 
 to do her duty to me she treated herself to a love of a green 
 gros de Naples " vanity," and me to a pet of salmon-coloured 
 poplin ditto. As soon as the dresses were made up (I had 
 mine trimmed with cherry-colour, and when it came home, 
 oh! it did look heavenly — the dear) we didn't lose a day 
 before we had booked two inside places for ourselves, and one 
 out for our Mary to Brighton, by that splendid fast safety 
 coach, " the HuRRicANE,"and the next morning having taken 
 a meat breakfast and an affectionate farewell of Papa, we left 
 home with a tear in our eye, and fourteen boxes in a hackney- 
 coach for the " Bull and Mouth." 
 
 When we got to the office there was "The Hurricane" drawn 
 up ready in front of it, with such a crowd waiting to see it start, 
 that it was as much as we could do to get into our places; and, 
 indeed, scarcely were we seated, before there was a cry of " all 
 right," and we dashed down Waterloo-place, the guard play- 
 ing the " Girls we left behind us" so beautifully, that every- 
 body turned round to look at the coach as it darted by; while 
 we kept continually hearing the coachman hallooing out 
 "Heigh! heigh!" to all the carts before us, and abusing 
 the drivers as we rattled past, so that Mamma and I got so 
 nervous, that we expected every minute to be upset, and have to 
 be taken home again on a shutter. When once we got clear of 
 London, I never knew anything to go so fast as we did; and, 
 although the old gentleman in an intensely black wig and 
 whiskers dyed a dark purple to match, who was our only fellow 
 
56 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 inside passenger said that the pace was beautiful, — still Mamma, 
 who was half dead with fright, expressed an opinion that the 
 coachman must be tipsy, or he'd show more regard to the feel- 
 ings of the poor dumb animals that he was driving. But the 
 gentleman would have it, that the horses liked it as much as 
 any one — though if they did, theirs must have been a merry 
 life and a short one, — for he told ns immediately afterwards, 
 that they never lasted more than three years on the road, and 
 when we stopped to change, the poor things were all over in 
 such a white lather, that they looked just as if they were going 
 to be shaved. 
 
 While they were getting ready to start again, we were 
 quite shocked with the shameful language of that disgusting 
 driver, who kept swearing at the stable boys, first setting at 
 " Jim," and then giving it "Sam," and calling everyone either 
 a dog or a scoundrel. Then, if the fellow hadn't the impu- 
 dence to come and stand right opposite the coach-window, 
 with his legs apart, and stroke his imperial, while he stared 
 at me, in such an impudent way that Mamma pulled the blind 
 down right in his face, exclaiming aloud, that she never 
 knew such an ill-bred fellow in all her life, and vowing that 
 she should make a point of representing his conduct to the 
 proprietors and get him discharged. 
 
 " It will not be of the slightest use I can assure you, 
 Madam," said the old gentleman, who, although he must have 
 been sixty at least, was dressed in the height of fashion. 
 " Perhaps you are not aware that he is the Honourable 
 Gustavus Adolphus Gee, and it's only his way, Ma'm; he 
 means nothing by it." 
 
 " The Honourable Mr. Gee! Indeed, sir!" replied Mamma, 
 with a smile. " Well, if he means nothing by it, that alters 
 the case entirely; only I did the gentleman the injustice 
 to mistake him for a common coachman; though really, now 
 I come to think of it, — he! he! he! — it was very short-sighted 
 and silly of me — he! he! he! — to make such a blunder — he! 
 he! he! — for now I look at him again," she continued, pull- 
 ing up the blind, and taking a peep at him, " any one could 
 tell by that beautiful aristocratic nose of his that he was 
 nobly connected. Gee!" she added, musing to herself — " Gee! 
 yes, of course, if I'd only heard the name, I should have 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 57 
 
 known that it is the family one of Lord — hem ! hem ! — Lord 
 — a — dear me! I shall forget my own name next." 
 
 " Lord Fortiwinx, Ma'm; Mr. Gee is his Lordship's 
 brother," suggested the old young man. 
 
 " Yes, Fortiwinx! so it is, to be sure," answered Mamma, as 
 if the truth had just struck her — " closely connected, you know, 
 my dear," she continued, addressing me, " to our friend young 
 Snorhard, who had such a hard right for Beds last election. 
 But dear me," she added, again turning to the old gentleman, 
 " I thought the family was very rich, and certainly never 
 expected to see one of that noble stock reduced to such ex- 
 tremities. What a nice, handsome, classical face, too, he 
 has of his own, has he not, Charlotte, love? What a pity it 
 is that his Lordship doesn't put him into the church or the 
 army, with those splendid white teeth of his! And is the 
 poor young man very badly off, can you inform me, sir?" ob- 
 served my mother, as the Honourable driver finished his glass 
 of soda-water and brandy, and remounted the box. 
 
 " Badly off! Dear me! no, Madam," said the gentleman 
 with the purple whiskers ; " he's rolling in money, I can 
 assure you." 
 
 " Goodness ! what an interesting character!" replied Mamma. 
 
 "Plenty of money; and what's better, he knows how to 
 spend it, Ma'm," answered the gentleman in the intensely 
 black wig. " Why, he pays a good round sum every year to 
 be allowed to drive this coach." 
 
 "Dear, dear! what a delightfully eccentric being! isn't 
 he, Charlotte, my love?" replied Mamma. "And his poor, 
 poor lady? — for I think, if my memory serves me truly, I 
 recollect hearing my talented young friend, Mr. Snorhard, 
 say that Mr. Gee was married." 
 
 " I am afraid you have been misinformed, Madam," an- 
 swered the old gentleman ; " Mr. Gee is still single, I can 
 assure you." 
 
 " Indeed, you surprise me; I suppose I must make some 
 mistake," replied Mamma. " And does he really take the 
 half-crowns now, like an ordinary coachman?" 
 
 " Oh yes, Madam, he expects the customary perquisite as if 
 he had been bred and born to the business." 
 
 " Dear me! how delightfully he sustains the character!" 
 
58 WHOM TO MAEEY 
 
 " Yes, Ma'm, as if he'd been brought up on the stage — 
 he! he!" 
 
 '•'He! he! he!" echoed Mamma, and "He! he! he!" 
 echoed I, at the old gentleman's j ok elet. 
 
 " I suppose the passengers do them up in paper, and he 
 presents them to some charity at the end of the year?" asked 
 Mamma. 
 
 " Pardon me, Madam, not at all," he replied. " He says that 
 they just find him in rats, for his famous dog 'Tommy' to kill."' 
 
 " Oh, he's quite the sportsman, I see," continued Mamma. 
 " And Mr. Gee, I suppose, resides with my lord his brother 
 at Brighton? for I think I heard my friend young Mr. Snor- 
 hard say that Lord Fortiwinx was among the visitors there." 
 
 " I believe not, Madam; Lord Fortiwinx has, to the best 
 of my knowledge, retired for the winter to his seat in Witney, 
 and Mr. Gee usually stays at the hotel where the coach puts 
 
 u p-" 
 
 This conversation made me so anxious to see more of one 
 who, from my ignorance of young noblemen, struck me at that 
 time as being a most eccentric and singular character, that 
 when the coach stopped again to change horses, I took a 
 good long peep at the Honourable driver. Though Mamma 
 would have it that any one might see at a glance that noble 
 blood flowed in his veins, still, he did look so thoroughly the 
 coachman, that even the Norroy King-at-arms himself would 
 have been puzzled to say whether he was a gentleman or not. 
 Upon my word, if he hadn't got on a big short drab coat, 
 that hung all loose about him, and looked exactly like a flannel 
 petticoat with large sleeves and pockets to it, and with buttons 
 the size of penny almond cakes at least, on which were en- 
 graved pictures of stage-coaches, and sportsmen shooting. 
 His trousers were of the well-known duster pattern, and 
 fitted so tight, that really his legs looked like two thin rolls 
 of wire gauze. Round his neck was twisted a large handker- 
 chief of a staring shawl, or, indeed, almost carpet pattern, 
 fastened by a pin, with a little gold horse-shoe at the top of 
 it. He wore a grey hat, without any nap on it, which gave 
 you an idea that it had been shaved to make the beaver grow 
 stronger, and he had an eye-glass hanging down through the 
 brim of it. He had no whiskers; and his hair was cut so 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 59 
 
 short, that when he took his hat off, it looked like a drab plush 
 wig; and when he walked, he carried his arms as curved and 
 stiff as a pair of parentheses. 
 
 Mamma, who I could now see was most anxious to make 
 his acquaintance, kept, every time we stopped, letting down 
 the window, and asking either, what was the name of the place 
 we were at? or, whose mansion that was with the long 
 avenue of elm trees that we had passed on the road? or, how 
 long it would be before we arrived at Brighton? And when 
 Mr. Gee had informed her, she would appear surprised, and 
 say, " Good gracious, so soon as that! — what beautiful horses 
 you must drive, to be sure; but, perhaps, quite as much praise 
 is due to the cleverness of the driver." The last time the 
 coach stopped to change horses, she asked whether Brighton 
 was full, and whether there were many visitors of "ton" 
 there or not; and having learnt from Mr. Gee that there was 
 (< a tidy show of nobs" there, she requested to know whether 
 he could recommend the hotel the coach stopt at; and after 
 the Honourable Gentleman had told her he'd back it as the 
 best house for bashawed lobsters in the whole place, she said, 
 that, upon his recommendation, she and her daughter (draw- 
 ing Mr. Gee's attention to myself,) would make a point of 
 putting up there. 
 
 The morning after we arrived in Brighton, on my telling 
 Mamma that I had, whilst coming down in the coach, lost the 
 drop out of one of my earrings, she said that I really ought 
 to take more care of my things, and it was so annoying as 
 she would have to go and see Mr. Gee about it, and really he 
 might think it was only an excuse for making his acquaint- 
 ance. However, on ringing the bell after breakfast, to 
 know whether she could speak with the gentleman, she 
 was informed that he had just two minutes before stepped 
 out to the barracks, as at twelve o'clock that day he had a 
 match coming off with one of the officers; and on inquiring 
 what the match was, she learnt that Mr. Gee had bet fifty 
 pounds that he would drink a pint of porter out of a soup 
 plate with a teaspoon, before Captain Lollop could devour 
 the whole of a plain penny bun. Mamma was equally un- 
 successful in her endeavours to obtain an interview the next 
 morning, for then she heard that Mr. Gee had to make his ap- 
 
60 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 pearance before the magistrates, at eleven o'clock, to answer 
 a charge of having on the preceding evening, after dinner, 
 turned off the main gas pipe of the chapel of the Independent 
 "Wesleyans, and so plunged the whole congregation into sudden 
 darkness. On hearing this, I couldn't help expressing rather 
 an unfavourable opinion of Mr. Gee's conduct, and though 
 Mamma agreed with me that .it was highly reprehensible, and 
 there was scarcely any excuse to be made for it, still she said 
 I ought to remember that young men would be young men, 
 and that it was ridiculous to expect that you could put an old 
 head upon such youthful shoulders as those of the Honourable 
 Mr. Gee. Besides, I should recollect, that from the little we 
 had seen of him, it was easy to perceive that he was a young 
 man with a great now of animal spirits. And further, that 
 with a purse like his, he would be able to make such ample 
 reparation, that when she came to think of it, it did not 
 strike her as being altogether so inexcusable as she must 
 confess at the first blush of the thing it appeared. And she 
 added, in conclusion, " You see, Charlotte, the poor young 
 man sadly wants a nice little wife to look after him, and be- 
 tween you and me," she continued, fixing her eyes on me, 
 " if a certain lady I know, who is not a hundred miles from 
 this spot, were the Honourable Mrs. Gee, I have no doubt he 
 would soon become quite an altered being under her guidance." 
 However, Mamma had . set her mind on seeing Mr. Gee, 
 and at last she succeeded. I declare, when he heard of my loss, 
 and had ascertained that the drop was nowhere to be found 
 in the coach, if he did not, with the greatest politeness ima- 
 ginable, present me with a beautiful pair of pearl earrings. 
 After this, what with being in the same hotel, and always 
 meeting him either in the passage, or else on the parade, or on 
 the pier, we became more and more intimate, for Mamma 
 had always something complimentary to tell him. First, his 
 dog-cart was the sweetest thing she had ever seen; or then, 
 he must have a constitution of iron, to be able to go through 
 such fatigues, and yet look so remarkably well as he did; and 
 now she would stop him to tell him how I had fancied that I 
 had seen him at the concert the other night, when who 
 should it turn out to be, after all, but Prince George. Then 
 she would ask him, whether the likeness had ever been 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 61 
 
 noticed before, adding, that I, who was very difficult to 
 please, thought the Prince a remarkably handsome young 
 man. Whenever she heard him coming up, or going down 
 stairs, she would rush to meet him, and ask him whether he 
 could spare her a minute, for either she wanted to have his 
 opinion upon some shells that she and her daughter had 
 picked up on the beach, and she was sure he was a Con- 
 chologist, or else could he inform her who that disgraceful 
 paragraph, in the Morning Post, about shop -lifting in high 
 life, referred to, for she was dying to know who the Countess 
 of C-with-three-stars was, and whether he thought her 
 ladyship was likely to have carried off the pot of anchovies, 
 as mentioned in the paper. At last, Mamma, to her great 
 joy, found out that Mr. Gee was a constant visitor at the Tolle- 
 maches, who were very intimate with our friends the Dow- 
 deswells, and she got them to take us to a party where we 
 were formally introduced to Mr. Gee, and grew to be very 
 good friends indeed. After this, Mamma arranged a little 
 soiree, which so completely broke the ice, that we ultimately 
 thawed into the best of friends, and very often — as we were 
 in the same hotel — Mr. Gee would dine with us, and re- 
 peatedly drop in of an evening to smoke his cigar, the smell 
 of which, Mamma declared, she was exceedingly partial to. 
 
 It was very astonishing how Mr. Gee altered as he became 
 better acquainted with us. When first we knew him, I could, 
 with an occasional exception here and there, understand what 
 he said; but as we grew more and more intimate, his figures 
 of speech got more and more unintelligible to me, until at 
 last really if one wanted to comprehend him, one ought to have 
 had a pocket dictionary of the language he delighted to in- 
 dulge in ready to refer to every minute. Any human being 
 that was at all to his taste was, he declared, " a brick;" while 
 his hat he would term with equal appropriateness " a tile." If 
 you inquired after his health of a morning, he was sure to be 
 either "bobbish," or " seedy;" while if he referred to his father, 
 it was always under the affectionate title of " the governor." 
 Nor did he restrict the eccentricities of his language solely to 
 his mother tongue. Were he about to take his leave, he would 
 tell you that he was going to counter his baton; while at another 
 time, if he wanted to express his approbation of my appearance,. 
 
62 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 he would declare that I looked quite the fromage. After any 
 of these remarks, he used to chuckle so heartily, that Mamma 
 and I, fancying they must be something funny, used to laugh at 
 them almost as much as he did. And, indeed, we both set him 
 down as a perfect wit; for, upon my word, he would always be 
 putting the v's for the w's, and the w's for the v's, in the most 
 facetious manner. Sometimes, too, when the fancy took him, he 
 would translate some of the vulgar sayings into fine language; 
 and if ever he met me on the beach along with our Mary of 
 a morning, he would request to know " whether my maternal 
 parent was aware of my absence from home." But the most 
 curious part of all Mr. Gee's strange language, and which 
 was a perfect riddle to both Mamma and myself was, that every 
 thing that the rest of the world were accustomed to look up 
 to, he styled " slow," while everything that other people 
 looked down upon he called " fast." Any kind of mental 
 occupation was " slow," but all those which to me seemed posi- 
 tively cruel were fast. Reading was " slow," but taking the 
 linch-pin out of a washerwoman's cart, was " fast;" music 
 was " slow," but throwing red-hot halfpence to Italian boys 
 was "fast;" dancing was "slow," but a maggot race for a 
 hundred pounds a-side was " fast." 
 
 These opinions of Mr. Gee certainly did not tend to in- 
 crease my admiration of him, and whenever I ventured to 
 hint as much to Mamma, she would say I was a sad, sad, 
 ungrateful girl, and didn't deserve to be acquainted with a 
 member of the aristocracy, and she really must beg that, 
 whatever my sentiments might be, I would keep them 
 locked up in my own bosom for the future, or else I should 
 be having people fancy that I had never known a young 
 nobleman before in all my life. And my dear, she would 
 continue, you really should remember that, whatever Mr. 
 Gee's eccentricities may be, still everybody allows he has no 
 vice in him, and I'm sure even his greatest enemy couldn't 
 charge him with a want of generosity; for if ever he inflicts 
 a wound, he is always ready to heal it with a Bank Note. 
 Now there's that case when he and Sir Sidney Buzzard 
 punished the policeman so severely that the man was 
 obliged to leave the force — didn't Mr. Gee, in the handsomest 
 manner, settle ten shillings a- week on the lucky fellow for 
 

 V/A 
 
 
 ,M 
 
 
 
 ft 
 
 P^M- 
 
 - 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 63 
 
 the rest of his life? And hav'n't you heard Mr. Gee over 
 and over again say he had out of his own pocket put a 
 common prizefighter— ■■" the Hampstead Bull-dog" I think 
 he called him — in a very respectable public-house, merely 
 because he had taken a fancy to the man? And isn't it 
 well known nothing pleases him better than to treat the 
 poor London cabmen of a night to bottles and bottles of 
 champagne, out of their common pewter pots? And surely 
 such acts as these are more than sufficient to make amends for 
 any other little irregularities that the Honourable gentleman 
 might be guilty of. Besides, are you so blind, my love, to 
 your own interest, as to set your face against the young man, 
 when you yourself have heard Mrs. Tollemache say, that the 
 only son between him and the title is going out of this empty 
 world as fast as a consumption can gallop, and that his 
 dear, noble old brother has already got at least one foot in 
 the grave. And, to conclude, you know as well as I do, what 
 kind of husbands " reformed rakes" are generally said to make. 
 The fact was, Mamma, it was clear, had made up her mind 
 that I was to marry Mr. Gee. She told me she had dreamt 
 that I was Lady Fortiwinx, three nights running; and she was 
 continually planning means for bringing us together. And really 
 I, from seeing the man so often, and from the presents he gave 
 me, began to grow less and less disgusted with him every day. 
 It was no fault of Mamma's, too, if Mr. Gee didn't think very 
 highly of me. Before my face, and behind my back, she was 
 continually singing my praises. I was such a dear, affec- 
 tionate thing — she didn't know what on earth she should do 
 when the time came for me to leave her, for of course she 
 could not expect that I should remain always with her. 
 Though there was only one thing she prayed for, and that 
 was, that the happy man who had me would be able to 
 appreciate my worth. So that after a month or so, Mr. Gee 
 and I used to be seen so frequently together, that both the 
 Tollemaches and the Dowdeswells, were continually quizzing 
 me, and asking me whether the day was fixed, and requesting 
 to know whether I happened to want such a thing as a bride's- 
 maid or not; while all the time Mamma only kept won- 
 dering why Mr. Gee didn't propose. However, as she said 
 there was nothing like a pic-nic (unless, indeed, it was a 
 
64 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 moonlight ramble) for converting Bachelors into Benedicts, — 
 she was determined to get up a grand one to the Devil's 
 Dyke, and it would be odd, indeed, if that didn't bring mat- 
 ters to a crisis. She had no idea of seeing me dilly-dallying 
 away the best part of my life, and all my good looks, with 
 those social dogs-in-the-manger — silent suitors, who wont 
 propose themselves, and yet prevent people who would from 
 doing so. 
 
 Accordingly, the next time Mr. Gee came, Mamma told 
 him she had made up her mind to have a little trip to the 
 Devil's Dyke, and hoped that Mr. Gee would join us. This 
 was just to Adolphus' taste. He said it would be capital, es- 
 pecially if we had three or four donkeys over there for a bit 
 of fun after dinner. To this Mamma gave her consent, 
 saying, she supposed young people would be young peo- 
 ple; adding, as she smiled, w T ith a view to a compliment 
 upon her youthful appearance, " She was young herself 
 once." But Mr. Gee took no notice of the observation, 
 further than answering " Certainly;" and immediately went 
 on to say, the gentlemen would bring " the drinkables," if the 
 ladies would provide " the eatables" — only he hoped to good- 
 ness some one would remember the salt, and he'd make it a 
 moral duty to bring the cork-screw. 
 
 But Mamma, on making out her list, was in sad tribula- 
 tion to find we should be dreadfully short of gentlemen — in 
 fact, there were only two to more than half-a-dozen ladies. 
 "Whereupon she asked Mr. Gee whether he didn't think he 
 could prevail upon some of his gallant young friends at the 
 barracks to join us. On this, Adolphus informed her he 
 thought he could reckon upon Captain Lollop, and young 
 Doonumn, but he was afraid he couldn't get Ensign Dawdle, 
 who, he said, was " the fastest of the lot;" for Dawdle was at 
 that moment in training for his grand match of fifty pounds 
 a- side, to pick up a hundred eggs a yard apart within the 
 hour. Besides, he added, it would be no use Dawdle's 
 coming even if he could, for his backers wouldn't allow r him 
 to touch anything but raw rump-steaks till the feat came off. 
 However, he would do his utmost to secure four or five of 
 the officers for us, though we mustn't blame him if we found 
 them nothing but a pack of donkeys. At this we both 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 65 
 
 laughed, and I said he was a sad quiz, and Mamma told him 
 he really was too severe upon the poor young men. But he- 
 would have it they were all donkeys; adding, that they were 
 such a set of mere boys, and " so intensely green," as he 
 called it, that he had christened the regiment " Her Majesty's- 
 Sappies and Minors" 
 
 Next morning at breakfast, Mamma did nothing but talk 
 about the officers, telling me how glad she was we were going 
 to be introduced to them. They were generally single men, 
 with independences as handsome as their uniforms; and there 
 was no knowing whether Gee's affection mightn't turn out 
 to be disgustingly platonic after all, and we, perhaps, find 
 that he'd only been trifling with the best feelings of my 
 nature, and loving me " as a sister," in the very prime of my 
 life. So she hoped and trusted I'd put on that beautiful pink 
 bonnet that I looked so well in, for we couldn't tell what 
 might happen — blind mortals as we were. 
 
 The breakfast things couldn't have been taken away above 
 ten minutes, when the waiter brought us up a note, saying a 
 man was waiting below for an answer. It was from Mr. 
 Gee, written in his usual eccentric and would-be witty style,, 
 and ran as follows: — 
 
 " My dear Mrs. De Roos, 
 
 " I have secured Lollop, and he says he's sure Doonuffin 
 will come if the ladies wont mind him smoking his weed after 
 dinner. 
 
 • So, lul-lul-lul-lul-la-ft-e-tee, yours truly, 
 
 A. G. Gee. 
 "P.S. By the by, consuming them donkeys, — how many 
 will you require? I think the ladies ought to have one a 
 piece. Please send word back by the man, as I am waiting 
 at the barracks to know. 'Oh, criky, don't I love my 
 mother!'" 
 
 We could neither of us understand the postscript to the- 
 note, for Mr. Gee having always spoken of the officers as a 
 pack of donkeys, Mamma would have it that it referred to the 
 number of officers we wanted to make up the party; while I 
 said I felt convinced that it merely related to the donkeys he 
 had proposed to engage for us to ride upon. However 
 
 F 
 
66 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Mamma said it would be better to speak to the man on the 
 subject, as such a mistake would be very awkward, and she 
 wouldn't for the world give any offence in that quarter. But 
 so thoroughly convinced was she that she was in the right, 
 and I — as usual — in the wrong, that she would twist every- 
 thing the man said to her own view of the case, and kept 
 fancying that all the donkey-man told her about the long- 
 eared things related to Mr. Gee's friends at the barracks. 
 
 When the man came into the room, Mamma — determined 
 to put the question plainly to him, and so find out whether 
 Mr. Gee, when he spoke of Donkeys, intended to refer to the 
 Officers — said with a smile, " Do you know, my good man, 
 whether the Honourable Mr. Gee, in the letter you brought 
 from him, in speaking of donkeys — he ! he ! he ! — means them 
 for the Officers or not?" 
 
 " Oh yes, Marm," replied the donkey-keeper, " I knows 
 he do, 'cos Cap'en Lollop was with him — Cap'en Lollop, you 
 know, Marm — him as were had up for a tarring of the hin- 
 sides of all the ladies' bathing gownds — and they was a talking 
 on a party to the Devil's Dyke, and saying as how it 'ud be 
 capital fun." 
 
 4i There you see, Charlotte, I was right, only you ivill be 
 so positive, my love !" she said, turning to me; " and a nice 
 mistake I should have made if I had followed your advice." 
 Then turning to the man, she continued, " Will you tell the 
 Honourable Mr. Gee that I think half a dozen will be suf- 
 ficient. That will be just one to each lady." 
 
 " Werry good, Marm," the man answered; " and you may 
 depend upon their all being quiet and fit for ladies." 
 
 " Yes, I hope Mr. Gee will attend to that," replied Mamma, 
 sharply; " for I should be sorry if anything occurred to upset 
 the party." 
 
 " Oh, yer needn't be afeard on any party being upset with 
 the ones you'll have, Marm," answered the man; " Mr. Gee 
 knows 'em well, and will answer for none on 'em being at all 
 wishus. Indeed there never were but onein our whole troop 
 as couldn't be trusted out with a lady, and he were a black 
 'un, with a white nose." 
 
 "A black one with a white nose!" exclaimed Mamma; 
 " dear me, how singular! He used to play the cymbals. I 
 suppose?" 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 67 
 
 " No, Marm, not exactly that," the man answered; "though 
 he were uncommon clever, to be sure! — Do almost anything 
 but talk. Understand everything that was said to him, like 
 a Christian, Marm." 
 
 " Ah, I see," replied Mamma; "of foreign extraction, and 
 understood the language, but could not speak it?" 
 
 " Why, Marm," laughed out the donkey keeper, " I sup- 
 pose that were about it." 
 
 " And was he really such a bad character?" 
 
 " Yes, Marm," replied the man; "he wornt to be trusted 
 out without some one to look arter him. You see, he was 
 inclined to shy, and them is always the most dangerous to 
 ladies, Marm." 
 
 " Yes, very true, my good man," answered Mamma; " your 
 shy ones are always such sly ones, that one is never safe with 
 the creatures." 
 
 "No more yer are, Marm," continued the man; "but 
 yer needn't have no fears of them as Mr. Gee has settled 
 upon. Now, there's 'Sir Tatton Sykes* will be just the 
 werry thing for you. He's a grey un, but not at all shaky 
 about the knees, I can assure yer; and Mr. Gee, who knows 
 him well, said he were the only one as would take you''' 
 
 " Indeed, I am very much obliged to Mr. Gee," replied 
 Mamma, with biting sarcasm, " for choosing the grey Sir 
 Tatton for me." 
 
 " Well, Marm," the man added, scratching his head, " if 
 yer objects to him, there's ' Handsome Jack ' as yer can have; 
 only, yer see, Mr. Gee were afeard on his being a lee-eetle too 
 fast for one o' your time of life. And the worst on it is, he 
 will get at his tricks occasionally, and that might frighten 
 yer, Marm; though, if yer just gives him a tap on the head 
 with yer parasol, he's as quiet as a lamb arter it. Otherwise 
 he's a beautiful sweet temper, and so uncommon partial to 
 carrots, that, bless you, he'll follow my eldest daughter about 
 anywhere." 
 
 "Your daughter has auburn hair, then, I suppose?" asked 
 Mamma. 
 
 " Well, it is a leetle inclined that way, Marm," replied 
 the man, with a look of wonder, as if he was asking himself 
 what on earth that had got to do with the business? " How- 
 
 f2 
 
68 "WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 ever, Marm, to keep to the pint," he continued, " as yer dont 
 seem to fancy either ' Sir Tatton Sykes ' or ' Handsome 
 Jack,' there's one among the lot as Mr. Gee said he should 
 like to be there, as I'm sure you'd be werry pleased with. 
 He's not a werry good 'un to look at; but he is so quiet and 
 gentle, that even if you were to dig your shawl pin into his 
 back, I don't think it 'ud make any difference to him much." 
 
 "Dear me!" exclaimed Mamma; "well, he must be a 
 donkey indeed." 
 
 "Yes, Marm," answered the man; "he's a werry extra- 
 ordinary donkey, I can assure yer. He's called ' the Philo- 
 sopher] Marm, and has one of the most raggedest coats you 
 ever seed. The strangest thing is, too, that yer can't use 
 him to shoes nohow; for do what you will, he's always flinging 
 'em off, and going about without ere a one." 
 
 "Lord bless me!" exclaimed Mamma, horrified; "I should 
 hope Mr. Gee would never think of bringing a creature like 
 that." 
 
 " "Well, I told you, Marm, as he worn't a werry good 'un to 
 look at," said the man, in explanation; " only I thought the 
 gentleness on his natur 'ud please yer. Bless you, though he's 
 been pelted and persecuted by all the boys in the town, yet I 
 never know'd him to kick one on 'em. His love of taters, 
 too, is wonderful — biled, or unbiled, bless yer, it's all the, 
 same to him — so long as they's taters. As for beer, too, I 
 gives yer my word, Marm, I've seed him get as drunk on it 
 as any Christian — I have, indeed. 
 
 "Pretty Philosopher, truly!" cried Mamma, indignantly. 
 " However, I'm very glad you've given me this warning; 
 and you'll be good enough to tell Mr. Gee that I wouldn't 
 have such a mere animal as he seems to be at our picnic on 
 any account." 
 
 " "Well, then, Marm, I suppose yer must have one in his 
 place; and if I might make so bold, I should recommend 'the 
 General.' He's prodigious hansome to be sure, and has a 
 fine Roman nose of his own, with the thinnest legs I'm sure 
 you ever set eyes on." 
 
 " There, never mind about his legs," replied Mamma. 
 " But do you really think that Mr. Gee could persuade ' the 
 General' to come? I should so like him to be there." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 69 
 
 " Oh, yes, Marra, I've not the least doubt he could be per- 
 suaded to come, if so be as he was took round by the road, 
 and kept away from the water; for you see, Marm, it was 
 only t'other day, when he was out on the beach along with 
 Lady Limpet, as lives on the Steyne, when all on a sudden, 
 hang me, if he doesn't bolt off, and carry her Ladyship right 
 into the middle of the sea, and there he stood with the water 
 up to his shoulders, and the poor lady clinging to his neck, 
 and screaming away for help, so that two on us was obliged 
 to go in and pull him out by main force." 
 
 " What an extraordinary propensity, to be sure !" cried 
 Mamma, considerably alarmed. 
 
 "Yes, Marm," continued the man; "but it's the only 
 drawback he's got, Marm, unless, indeed it be that he's 
 blind of one eye." 
 
 "Ah! lost it in the field, I dare say," added Mamma. 
 " Ah! gallant creature! I've no doubt he'd sooner die than 
 run." 
 
 " Well, I really do believe he icould sooner die than run 
 any day, Marm," replied the donkey man. 
 
 " Yes, it is easy to see * the General ' is something out of 
 the common ! " exclaimed Mamma. 
 
 "Out of the common! I believe you, Marm!" the man 
 replied. " He's been regularly bred and born to it, like one 
 of the right sort. So I'll tell Mr. Gee as how you'd like to 
 have him. Now, Marm, if you'd excuse the libity, there's 
 ' young Ducrow* — would you like to have him as well? He 
 goes out to most of the pic-nics here, and is a gen'ral fav'rite 
 with the ladies." 
 
 "'Young Ducrow?'" asked Mamma; "why, how old is 
 he?" 
 
 " Rising four, Marm," he answered. 
 
 "Only four years old!" exclaimed Mamma. "What is 
 the man talking about? No, I don't want any such little 
 things at my party." 
 
 " He's wonderful clever, indeed, Marm," continued the 
 man. " Mr. Gee always takes him out, wherever he goes. 
 You can't tell how he'll amuse yer. He fires off a pistol, 
 and sets at table with a napkin round his neck, and will pick, 
 your pocket of anything, Marm." 
 
70 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Bless me, I wouldn't have a creature with any such pro- 
 pensities near me for the world ! " 
 
 " You'd much better have him, Marm. He does it all in 
 play, Marm; and what's more, he's the littlest thing of his age 
 you ever seed; and he's not above five hands, I can assure yer." 
 
 " Not above five hands !" returned Mamma. " Why how 
 many hands would you have him? Once for all, my good 
 man, such juvenile monstrosities may please Mr. Gee, but 
 they are not at all to my taste. So you can go back to the 
 Barracks, and tell Mr. Gee all that has transpired; only pray 
 take care and mention, that I would rather ' the General ' 
 came than all the Officers put together." 
 
 The man touched his hair, and left, laughing at what he 
 thought Mamma meant for a sarcastic joke. 
 
 No sooner had he taken his departure, than Mamma began 
 congratulating herself upon her good fortune, and said, it 
 would make the party so distingue to have one of the Gene- 
 ral's rank among the company; adding, that if the whole 
 affair went off as well as she expected, she certainly would go 
 to the expense of a paragraph among the fashionable intel- 
 ligence of the local papers, with a list of the distinguished 
 guests present. Then, suddenly, she'd exclaim, that she'd 
 give the world if she could only find out what that dear old 
 General liked. Perhaps a raised pie might be too heavy for 
 him. However, military gentlemen were generally partial to 
 lobster-salad, and if there was one thing that she prided her- 
 self upon more than another, it was her lobster-salad. Only let 
 the fish be fresh and firm, and — however much people might 
 laugh at her — on her lobster-salad she would stand before 
 the first cook in England. 
 
 In this way she went on, all dinner-time, and even up to 
 tea, talking of nothing but the General, — now wondering 
 whether the loss of his eye disfigured him much, and then 
 whether he wore a shade or green spectacles to hide it, till at 
 last the waiter put an end to her rhapsodies by bringing in 
 the cards of Mr. Gee and Captain Lollop, who, he said, were 
 in the Coffee Room. Telling the waiter to show the gen- 
 tlemen up, Mamma thrust the work she had been engaged upon 
 under the sofa, and begged of me to run and smooth my hair, 
 while she stepped into her room and changed her cap. As we 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 71 
 
 were going up stairs, she told me that she supposed Mr. Gee 
 had called about the Donkeys he was to see after for us to 
 ride upon. But it seemed as if all the fates were conspiring 
 against us, for in reality he had only come to speak about the 
 Officers, and the consequence was that Mamma insulted the 
 whole Regiment, by mistaking the one for the other. 
 
 When she came down, Mr. Gee introduced her to the 
 Captain — who was in his uniform — and I could see from the 
 change that immediately took place in her manner, and the 
 mincing way in which she talked, that she was endeavouring 
 to make herself as amiable as possible, and impress the Captain 
 with the idea that she was no ordinary personage. 
 
 " Indeed, Mr. Gee," she said, after the introductions were 
 over, " I have to tender you my very — very best thanks for 
 affording me the pleasure of the Captain's acquaintance. It 
 is very — very key'm<\ of you, for both my daughter and myself 
 have long been anxious to number him among our friends." 
 
 Lollop answered nothing, but smiled graciously, and curled 
 the ends of his mustachios, till they looked like the tip of a 
 camel's-hair paint-brush; while Mr. Gee assured Mamma, that 
 she would find Lollop " a perfect brick" — and to tell the truth, 
 from the colour of his coat, he did look something like one. 
 
 " So you intend honouring our little fete champetre on 
 Tuesday," Mamma said again, addressing the Captain. " You 
 must not, however, expect grande chose. It will be a mere 
 cold collation on the gras, and perhaps a dannce" 
 
 " You-au-are very good-aw," answered the Captain, still 
 twiddling his moustache. " I purpose-aw-affording myself 
 the pleasure-aw-aw of being there-aw." 
 
 " You are very key'md" replied Mamma. " I believe we 
 are also to be honoured by two or three of your friends we 
 have not as yet had the pleasure of being introduced to. I 
 am sure, Mr. Gee, 1 do not know how we should have 
 managed without your assistance. Really, the ladies ought 
 to be greatly indebted to you for the pains you have taken on 
 their behalf." 
 
 " Not at all," answered Adolphus. " I was glad to hear 
 from the man I sent up to you this morning, that you were 
 jolly well pleased with the selection I had made. They are 
 a rum lot; but they're the tidiest I could stumble over." 
 
72 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " I'm sure," returned Mamma, " that no one could have 
 done better. I was quite che-armed at your being able to 
 secure ' the General' for me." 
 
 "Well, I've done almost as well the other way," he replied. 
 
 "Indeed," said Mamma, with a smile, fancying he was 
 now going to tell her about the donkeys. " You mean those 
 stupid creatures you propose having for the young ladies. 
 Well, perhaps they will complete the party. How many 
 have you engaged?" 
 
 " Oh ! I have got four of the fastest of the lot for you. 
 Do'nt you think I have, Lollop?" 
 
 " Yes-aw," answered the Captain. " I-aw-think they 
 are-aw; and decidedly the best looking." 
 
 "I'm very glad of that," returned Mamma; "for really 
 some of those I have seen standing at the bottom of the 
 Steyne had such a disreputable and dirty appearance, that I 
 really should feel ashamed to be seen out with them. Upon 
 my word, I do believe the poor creatures are half starved. 
 But perhaps you know the ones I allude to, Captain Lollop — 
 I mean those that generally stand at the end of the Marine 
 Parade. You must know them; for I can assure you the 
 boys annoy nearly every lady that goes by." 
 
 Lollop, thinking that Mamma alluded to some of the junior 
 officers of his regiment, stared again, and at last stammered 
 out, "I really, Madam-aw-aw don't know those you refer to; 
 but-aw " 
 
 " Well, that is a good un," interrupted Gee, " when you 
 know as well as I do, that I've seen you yourself out with 
 some poor devils that I'm sure no one would have taken for 
 gentlemen." 
 
 " The ones I mean," said Mamma, still clinging to the 
 donkeys, " are generally taken for children — though, indeed, 
 I have known some of them to be taken for young ladies. 
 Now, it was only the other day that Miss Kate Tollemache, 
 who certainly is not a proud girl, got one to take her over to 
 Rotten Dean, and she said the poor creature was such a 
 miserable object, that she blushed when any one went by. 
 And would you believe it, she told me his coat was so full of 
 dust, that she was sure it never was brushed from one year's 
 end to another. And you would fancy, that when they get as 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 73 
 
 much as seven-and-sixpence a-day, they might be, at least, 
 decently dressed for the money." 
 
 I could see that Lollop was getting more and more angry 
 at the idea of any gentleman being spoken of in such terms. 
 
 " You may depend upon it, that's Ned Byng," said Gee — 
 " for he's very seedy, and has only seven and sixpence a-day, 
 I know; and it's always been a wonder to me how the fellows 
 could allow him to remain in the mess.'' 
 
 " That's just what Mrs. Tollemache said, I can assure you, 
 Captain Lollop; but they're all such a dreadful set of donkeys, 
 that one isn't a bit better than the other," continued Mamma, 
 who was so anxious to make friends with the officers, that 
 she would direct all her conversation to the Captain, though, 
 from his forced smile, I began to see that Mamma was making 
 some dreadful mistake; and though I nudged her underneath 
 the table, still she would go on, saying, that many ladies of 
 her acquaintance had entirely given them up; and that if it 
 wasn't for the nursery-maids, they wouldn't have a soul after 
 them. 
 
 Gee burst out laughing at this, and cried out, "Bravo, 
 Bouse!" and Mamma, encouraged by this approbation, only 
 went on ten times worse, notwithstanding I endeavoured to 
 turn the conversation, by asking Captain Lollop whether he 
 thought the fine weather would continue? 
 
 " But," proceeded Mamma, " I hope my keying friend, Mr. 
 Gee, has managed better for us. Now do see that at least 
 they are clean, there's a good creature, and that their shoes 
 and straps are all right; for I'm sure Captain Lollop will 
 agree with me that they are not generally so, and that, in- 
 deed, they more frequently look as if they had just come out 
 of the stable." 
 
 " I am sorry to say I do not understand you, Madam," an- 
 swered the Captain, with great hauteur. 
 
 " Well, Mrs. de Roos," said Gee, who, I could see, was 
 afraid of his friend's losing his temper at what he thought 
 Mamma intended for a joke, " I think the best way will be 
 for them to come round here for you, and all go on together." 
 
 " Oh ! dear me, no !" exclaimed Mamma, with a smile and a 
 shake of the head, " I wouldn't be seen in the public streets 
 with the things for all you could give me; in the country, 
 
74 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 where there is no one to notice you, of course, it is quite 
 another affair; but bless you, if I was to show myself in the 
 town with them, I should be afraid of being pointed out for 
 weeks afterwards. But tell me, Mr. Gee, I hope you have 
 chosen nice ones for us?" 
 
 " Why, Madam," said the Captain, with sarcasm, "you are 
 so difficult to please; but Lord Clozehorse is coming, and 
 perhaps you may not think him quite so disreputable as the 
 rest." 
 
 " Lord Clozehorse !" exclaimed Mamma; "why, what an 
 extraordinary name to give the donkey." 
 
 " Well, Madam," said the Captain, rising with dignity, " if 
 such be your opinion of Lord Clozehorse, perhaps they had 
 better all stop away." 
 
 "Oh, do not say so," cried Mamma; "you should have 
 more reg/*eard for the ladies, for at any rate they will afford 
 us a hearty laugh." 
 
 Gee, who all the while had been blowing his nose most 
 violently to smother and hide his laughter, now burst out, 
 and leant his head on the corner of the mantel-piece, and 
 kept lifting his leg up and down, as if some convulsion had 
 seized him. 
 
 Captain Lollop rose up — scarlet in the face with rage — and 
 saying, " Madam, I will bear with your insults no longer," 
 bounced out of the room. Mamma, alarmed at his sudden 
 departure, turned round to Gee, who was still laughing, and 
 clasping her hands, said, "Oh! what ever have I done? Oh! 
 Mr. Gee — Mr. Gee — what ever have I done — Mr. Gee?" 
 
 But Mr. Gee could only giggle out, " Oh dear, my poor 
 sides! it's the best bit of fun that has come off for this long 
 time. If you haven't been mistaking her Majesty's Sappies 
 and Minors for a pack of donkeys." And then he explained. 
 
 I never in all my life saw a person in such a dreadful way 
 before; and I do verily believe that she would have torn her 
 false front — if she hadn't been afraid of its coming off in the 
 presence of Mr. Gee — when she found that Lord Clozehorse 
 was a peer of the realm, instead of a donkey on the Marine 
 Parade, and that " the General," for whom she had expressly 
 intended to prepare her delicious lobster salad, was a long- 
 eared animal who would have preferred a thistle, and have 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 75 
 
 looked upon her delicious lobster salad as only so much green- 
 meat spoilt. 
 
 But the worst of it all was, that the next Saturday, at 
 breakfast, Mamma, while looking over the columns of that 
 horribly radical paper, the Brighton Guardian, discovered 
 a long and ludicrous caricature of the whole proceedings, 
 under the head of " Curious but natural mistake;'' after 
 which, upon my word, the whole aifair got to be so public, 
 that whenever the waiters came into the room, they were 
 obliged to put their napkins to their mouths to hide their 
 laughter; and whenever we walked out on the Parade, people 
 used to turn round and giggle, and even those impudent 
 donkey -boys used to run after us, crying out, " Do you want 
 a Hofficer, Marm?" 
 
 As this was not to be borne, we made up our minds to go 
 back to London; for, of course, whenever we went out we 
 were certain to meet that Captain Lollop, or some of the 
 officers, and they always crossed over to the other side of the 
 way directly they saw us; and though Mamma tried to ex- 
 plain away the mistake, and wrote a long letter, apologizing 
 for it, to the Captain, still he took no notice of it. Indeed, 
 Mr. Gee told us, that it was a most unfortunate affair alto- 
 gether; for he said that owing to his having nicknamed 
 the regiment "Her Majesty's Sappies and Minors," and 
 having always spoken of them as a pack of donkeys, it was 
 Lollop's tenderest point. And if he could hardly bear it from 
 him, why of course it came with double force from a lady on 
 the first time of his seeing her. Accordingly, putting all 
 these matters together, we agreed that it would be much 
 better to say " good-bye" to Brighton and Mr. Gee, and re- 
 turn home as soon as possible. 
 
76 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 OFFER THE FOURTH. 
 
 I SHOULD ADVISE ANY YOUNG FEMALE CANDIDATE FOR MATRIMONIAL 
 HONOURS, WHO WISHES TO MAKE ASSURANCE DOUBLY SURE, BY 
 WISHING TO HAVE TWO STRINGS TO HER BOW, OR RATHER TWO 
 BEAUX TO HER APRON STRING, TO READ THIS CHAPTER. THERE 
 IS AN OLD ADAGE, THAT A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH 
 TWO IN THE BUSH ; AND IF I HAD ONLY KEPT THE STRANGE 
 BIRD I HAD IN MY HAND, INSTEAD OF BEATING ABOUT THE BUSH 
 AS I DID, I SHOULD HAVE SAVED MYSELF A GREAT DEAL OF 
 ANNOYANCE, AND 3IY GENTLE READER THE TROUBLE OF PERUSING 
 WHAT FOLLOWS. 
 
 During our absence, Papa — who I dare say used to feel 
 lonely of an evening — had made a new acquaintance in the 
 person of the Reverend Evelyn Dossey, who had come to 
 consult him about what he feared was a slight tendency to 
 apoplexy. He certainly was one of the handsomest and most 
 elegant clergymen I think I ever saw. Not only had he a 
 beautiful florid and wax-like complexion, but his hair was as 
 black and shining as patent leather, and parted beautifully 
 down the middle; and I could have declared it curled 
 naturally, if it hadn't been that sometimes, when he called 
 early in the day, it had that peculiar smell of the tongs cling- 
 ing to it, which no bergamot can overpower. Mamma said 
 he must be between thirty and forty, if he was a day; for 
 with her quick eye for detecting the difference between real 
 and apparent youth, she told me that, notwithstanding he took 
 such pains to brush his long back hair on to the top of his 
 head, still she could see that he was quite bald on the crown. 
 His whiskers were perfect little pets; and it was clear from 
 the beautiful way in which they were curled, that he took great 
 pains with them, and was not a little proud of their appear- 
 ance. The worst part about him was his neck ; though at 
 first sight you hardly noticed it's being so short as it was, for 
 his white cravat was so beautifully tied and fluted in front, 
 that I declare, all the while he was in the room I used to sit 
 and wonder how on earth he managed it, and fancy what a 
 time it must take him every morning to do. Both Mamma 
 and I agreed that his linen was the finest we had ever seen, 
 and that it was quite a shame to put such lovely French 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 77 
 
 Cambric into shirts; while his white pocket-handkerchiefs 
 were of such exquisite texture, that we each of us allowed 
 that, with a nice rich Valenciennes lace border, they would 
 have been fit for the first lady in the land. He always dressed 
 in black, of course; and his clothes, and patent leather boots, 
 were so elegantly made, that he certainly did look a perfect 
 gentleman. Indeed, everything about him was extremely 
 quiet, even down to his jewellery — he wore very little, but 
 very good; for the only articles of bijouterie to be seen were 
 the agate buttons to his wristbands, and two or three inches 
 of a thin gold chain running to his waistcoat pocket, besides 
 a magnificent diamond ring, set quite plain, on the little finger 
 of his right-hand — and this was the hand, I noticed, off 
 which he took his black glove while in the pulpit. 
 
 The reverend gentleman, Mamma soon found out, was a 
 widower of several years' standing. He had early in life 
 married a young lady with a small fortune and a confirmed 
 consumption. As he had but little interest in the church, he 
 thought it better, instead of devoting the money his wife 
 brought him to the purchase of an advowson — for indeed he 
 had a moral objection to the sale of such holy offices — he had 
 thought it better, I repeat, to build a commodious Chapel at 
 the West End of London, — especially as the accommodation 
 at the Churches was far from sufficient, and his personal 
 appearance was highly attractive. This chapel he had taken 
 great pains to have so well warmed in winter, and ventilated 
 in summer, that — what with the softness of the cushions and 
 the hassocks — and having three or four professional singers 
 for his choir — and there being only free seats enough to ac- 
 commodate the footmen — and what with the rhetorical language 
 of his sermons, and the elegance and grandeur of his delivery 
 — and his being an extremely devout Christian, and a re- 
 markably handsome man — and what with his having written 
 two epic poems, one entitled "Paradise found — in woman ! !"* 
 and the other "Beelzebub, the king of rome!!!" — there 
 was soon not a seat to be had in the place for love or money, 
 and it was currently reported that the rent of the pews 
 yielded him a considerable income. 
 
 Mamma and I went there the very first Sunday after we 
 had made his acquaintance; and of all the elegant congrega- 
 tions I ever saw there never was anything equal to hisl 
 
78 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Nine-tenths of the pious and fashionable assembly were 
 ladies. The bonnets alone were worth going miles to see; 
 and there was scarcely a prayer-book in the pews that hadn't 
 a coronet emblazoned in gold on the back of it. The gay 
 colours of the splendid liveries of the Footmen, with their 
 powdered heads, had a magnificent effect; and I declare, if 
 the singing wasn't equal to the Italian Opera! As for the 
 Reverend Evelyn Dossey, too — much as I had been taken 
 with him before — when I saw him in the pulpit, I felt that if 
 it hadn't been for my attachment for Mr. Gee, I should have 
 fallen violently in love with him then and there. Oh! it 
 was so beautiful to hear him, in the most choice and poetical 
 language, raising his musical voice, and lifting up his beau- 
 tiful white hand — till his diamond ring sparkled again in the 
 light — against all the pomps and vanities of this wretched 
 vale of tears; and when he came to a new division in his 
 discourse, and he paused for a minute* to take his pocket- 
 handkerchief from his black silk gown, I declare the scent 
 that came from it, as he unfolded it and waved it to and fro, 
 was so heavenly and refreshing, that I could see all the ladies 
 in the gallery feasting upon the perfume. Then it was so 
 charming to hear him warn the be-rouged old dowagers in the 
 kind and delicate way he did, of the shortness of this life; 
 while the splendid figures of speech in which he alluded to 
 our all being " miserable sinners" took away greatly from the 
 harshness of the truth. And if — to give greater effect to his 
 sermon — he found it necessary to comment in strong terms 
 upon the innate sinfulness of the human race, he invariably 
 directed his eyes to the free seats, and addressed himself in 
 the most solemn and severe tones to the congregated Foot- 
 men in particular. 
 
 When we returned home to lunch, Mamma was so 
 thoroughly captivated with Mr. Dossey, and so taken with 
 the rank and fashion of his flock, that she couldn't help say- 
 ing the Reverend Gentleman was the very man to make a 
 young girl happy. She was sure, too — from the number of 
 times that he had turned his eyes to me during his sermon, 
 — I had made a deep impression upon him. Mr. Gee would be 
 certainly a very eligible match for me, but of course he was 
 not the moral character that Mr. Dossey was; and she must 
 confess she would much sooner see her child happy in an un- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 79 
 
 pretending Brougham with a man of virtue, than miserable 
 in a dashing Curricle with a confirmed Roue. Not that she 
 wished me entirely to discard Mr. Gee; but, as she told me 
 before, there was so little dependence to be placed in the 
 young man, and he was so nighty, that really there was no 
 telling whether he meant anything beyond mere friendship 
 after all. So she should like me not to be altogether re- 
 served in my manner to Mr. Dossey. 
 
 The next evening, when the Reverend Gentleman called, 
 I never heard anybody go on as Mamma did to him about 
 his sermon. She went to such extremes in her admiration 
 of his discourse, and flattered him so broadly, that it was a 
 wonder to me how she could ever have the courage to say as 
 much, and he be weak enough to be tickled by it. " Ah!" 
 she would exclaim, " it had made me, as well as herself, a sad- 
 der but a wiser woman. Indeed, all the time we were walk- 
 ing in Kensington Gardens, I did nothing," she told him, 
 " but talk of his discourse and him, and kept continually 
 blessing him for the new thoughts and feelings he had given 
 me." 
 
 First thing next morning, I declare if Mr. Dossey hadn't 
 been so pleased with Mamma's compliments on the previous 
 evening, that he sent me both his Poems, splendidly bound, 
 " with the best regards of the author" written in a very neat 
 hand on the fly-leaf. Mamma directed me to write back 
 immediately a long letter, thanking him for the present — she 
 herself dictating it to me, and making me speak in no mea- 
 sured terms of both the pleasure and profit I anticipated from 
 the perusal of his celebrated works. Twenty-four hours had not 
 gone over our heads, before Mr. Dossey in person answered my 
 note. Mamma pretended to scold him for having sent the 
 books, saying that she had not been able to get me away from 
 them ever since they had been in the house. And when he 
 volunteered to read us some of the passages that he said had 
 been the most admired in the humble effusions of his pen, 
 Mamma's rapture knew no bounds, and she kept making him 
 — though he certainly didn't require much pressing — con- 
 tinue to read the whole evening through. When he rose 
 to take his departure, she got him to promise that he 
 would come again as soon as he possibly could, and proceed 
 with the intellectual banquet to which he had so kindly 
 
80 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 treated us. After he had gone, Mamma told me she really 
 must beg — unless I wanted to offend her seriously — that I 
 would be a little more enthusiastic in my admiration of Mr. 
 Dossey's genius the next time he called. It really seemed 
 like a want of gratitude, and incapacity to appreciate high 
 poetry on my part. Besides, any one with half an eye could 
 see that Mr. Dossey's weak point was his love of approbation; 
 and when I could afford the poor man so much pleasure by 
 my praise, it was unkind — nay, almost wicked of me, to with- 
 hold it. After this, Mamma, finding that a very pleasing 
 and highly prepossessing portrait of the Reverend Gentleman, 
 in his robes, had been published, bought one of the litho- 
 graphs, together with an engraving of Milton, and had them 
 both framed, and hung up in the parlour as a pair, one on each 
 side of the chimney glass. This was a most agreeable surprise 
 to Mr. Dossey, on his next visit. Then, hearing that he 
 was extremely partial to Orange Marmalade, she got some of 
 the best Scotch expressly for him; so that, finding himself so 
 thoroughly at home, and so much admired in our little circle, 
 Mr. Dossey used to " drop in" to tea nearly every evening. 
 Then he would either read to us whole pages of the volume 
 of " Selections " from his Poems, that had been published by a 
 very dear and intimate friend of his; together with a disser- 
 tation on his Genius and Writings, in which Milton's 
 " Paradise Lost" was proved to be far inferior to Dossey's 
 " Paradise Found." Or else lie would copy into my Album 
 some "Impromptu" on my beauty he had composed at home. 
 But Mamma observing that, in the various poetic effusions 
 he addressed to me, he only spoke of himself as being warmed 
 by " Friendship's pure flame," was continually getting him 
 to take my Scrap Book home, and write something else in it, 
 in the hopes of his ultimately poetising himself into a less 
 tepid state of feeling. And, true enough, he did; for he kept 
 gradually working himself up, Lyric by Lyric, until, at last, 
 he confessed himself to be devoured by the " consuming fire 
 of Love." Consequently, what with his " Stanzas on my 
 eyes," or " Canzonets on my lips," and "Lines on being 
 asked for a definition of the feeling of Love" upon my word, 
 I began to like him more and more, and to think how different 
 he was to Mr. Gee. He seemed to be so much more in- 
 tellectual. Then, he was undoubtedly far better looking. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 81 
 
 Again, there was such a dove-like expression in his eyes; 
 and his manners were so much more refined — and his language 
 so much more elegant-— (Oh, it was so rich and round when 
 he warmed upon any subject!) — that, though he had not the 
 same liveliness of spirits, and frankness of disposition, and 
 manliness of deportment as Adolphus, still, I felt that my 
 affections were becoming more and more devoted every day 
 to Evelyn. And yet — though Mr. Dossey occupied the 
 centre of my heart — I still had a corner or two left for Mr. 
 Gee. 
 
 Nor was the Reverend Gentleman long in detecting that 
 my love was not entirely given to him; for he was very 
 anxious to learn who Mr. Gee was. And whenever he heard 
 me speak of him with approbation, his fine brow would lower, 
 and he would endeavour, in strong terms, to point out to me 
 the immorality of that gentleman's conduct, and at once pro- 
 ceed to denounce him as a mere man of this vain and empty 
 world. In all of this Mamma would strictly agree with him, 
 and declare that his conduct never was to her taste. And 
 when she observed, that I always endeavoured to find 
 some slight excuse for Adolphus's singular habits in the 
 volatility of his disposition, Mr. Dossey would become ex- 
 tremely agitated, and hope that that depraved young man 
 would never cross his path, for he never felt such a contempt 
 for a human being before, and he believed he was not alto- 
 gether devoid of love for his fellow-creatures. 
 
 But the worst of it was, just about this time, Mr. Gee left 
 Brighton for his chambers in the Albany. Of course he was net 
 long in calling at our house, and then — as ill-luck would have 
 it — because I kept him waiting a few minutes in the drawing- 
 room, he must go peeping into my album which was lying on 
 the table. Scarcely had he asked after my health, when he 
 wanted to know " who the deuce that Evelyn Dossey was, 
 who had been shooting his highly impassioned rubbish about 
 my angelic form into my album?" I told him, as delicately 
 as I could, that he was a very intimate friend of Papa's, and 
 had a great talent for poetry: but he only flew out at me, and 
 said in his eccentric way, "he should just like to come across 
 the buffer, and he wouldn't be long in knocking him into the 
 middle of next week," (those were his very words!) And he 
 was so cross and surly, too, that he would scarcely say a 
 
 G 
 
82 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 word beyond " Yes" and " No," and only kept half-whistling 
 to himself, and beating time with his fingers on the top of his 
 hat; observing, that he supposed he should meet the Poet some 
 day, and then he'd just take the liberty of astonishing his 
 weak nerves; and it was only by assuring him my feelings for 
 him had undergone no change during his absence, that I could 
 prevent him quitting the house in a huff. At last, however, 
 after a great deal of coaxing on my part — for I found when 
 he threatened to leave me for ever, I really did like the man 
 much more than I had imagined — I completely quieted all 
 his suspicions, and we parted better friends than we had ever 
 been. 
 
 After Adolphus' departure, I ran and told Mamma what 
 had happened. She was delighted, and said that she had 
 never given Mr. Gee credit for so much affection for me. 
 However, I needn't alarm myself about the rivals meeting, for 
 nothing was easier than to keep the two apart, by always 
 telling Mr. Gee we should be out, on those evenings when we 
 knew Mr. Dossey was coming, and tell Mr. Dossey the same 
 whenever Mr. Gee was going to be with us. 
 
 But, alas! matters w r ere not destined to go on quite so 
 pleasantly, and between the two stools I was very nearly 
 coming to the ground. For, one afternoon, while I was dress- 
 ing to go out with Mamma, Mary brought me up Mr. Dos- 
 sey's card, and told me he was in the drawing-room. I sent 
 word down I would be with him directly. As ill-luck would 
 have it, who should knock at the door about two minutes 
 afterwards, but Mr. Gee, and as I had told Mary I should be 
 down in a minute, of course it was too much trouble for my 
 lady to come all the way up stairs again to apprise me of his 
 arrival, but she must let Clayton (our man servant) show 
 Adolphus straight up into the same room as Evelyn. And 
 a pretty scene ensued — as I afterwards learnt from Mr. Dos- 
 sey himself — who, of course, had no more idea that he was in 
 the company of Mr. Gee, than Mr. Gee knew he was face to 
 face with Mr. Dossey. 
 
 After the gentlemen had informed each other that itlwas 
 extraordinarily fine weather for the time of year, the conver- 
 sation very naturally turned towards me, and they both agreed 
 that my portrait — which was over the sofa — didn't do half 
 justice to me. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 83 
 
 " Miss de Roos is a remarkably fine girl," observed Mr. 
 Gee, whose language was very different to strangers to what 
 it was to his friends. " She certainly has got a first-rate pair 
 of eyes of her own, hasn't she?" 
 
 "Extremely so — a — ," replied Mr. Dossey, who prided 
 himself on a slight drawl. " He will, indeed, be a fortunate 
 being — a — who is blessed with the hand of the lady — a — ." 
 
 " You think he will, eh?" asked Mr. Gee, smiling at the 
 clergyman — " Well, so do I," — and pulling up his shirt-collar, 
 he added — " and what's more, I rayther calculate I know the 
 lucky dog who's to have her." 
 
 "Indeed! you surprise me — a — ," simpered Mr. Dossey, of 
 course thinking he was " the lucky dog" Gee referred to. 
 " Then I suppose Mrs. De Roos — a — has spoken to you — a — 
 on the interesting subject — a — ?" 
 
 " Why no, the Old Girl has not exactly done as much as 
 that yet, though matters certainly have gone very far," an- 
 swered Adolphus. "But of course any one with the least 
 ' nouse? can see when a girl's in love with a fellow." 
 
 "What, then, you have noticed her attachment — a — ?" 
 returned Mr. Dossey; "I can assure you, sir — a — I myself 
 have had my doubts — a — ." 
 
 " Ah! of course, it isn't likely that you should be able to 
 judge as well as myself," replied Mr. Gee. " You don't 
 know, I suppose, whether the Father would be likely to have 
 any objection to the match, do you?" 
 
 " I have not yet addressed him on that point — a — ," an- 
 swered Mr. Dossey; "though I purpose speaking to him 
 shortly on the subject — a — ; but it is far from a pleasant 
 task — a — , I can assure you." 
 
 " Far from pleasant! So I should think it would be 
 for you :" said Mr. Gee, nettled at what he thought extreme 
 oniciousness on the part of Mr. Dossey. " I should say, now, 
 it would become you much better, if you were to keep 
 quiet in the back ground, and leave that part of the business 
 to me." 
 
 " You are very considerate, sir — a — ," answered Mr. 
 Dossey. " Perhaps it would look more respectful — a — , it 
 the party himself was to ask the Old Gentleman's consent — 
 a — , instead of allowing a comparative stranger — a — to in- 
 terfere in the business — a — ." 
 
 g 2 
 
84 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Of course it would," replied Mr. Gee; " what the deuce 
 has any other person, but the man himself, got to do with it? 
 But never fear, the * Governor' will give his consent fast 
 enough." 
 
 " I dare say — a — ," said Mr. Dossey; " especially as the 
 girl has no property — a — ; although she has excellent expec- 
 tations — a — , and of course the family would be glad to get 
 her — a — comfortably settled." 
 
 " Yes; I think it will be a very decent match for her," re- 
 marked Mr. Gee. " What do you think — eh?" 
 
 "Why — a — ," said Mr. Dossey, with a smile; " that is — 
 a — really such — a — an awkward question — a — for me to 
 answer — a — ." 
 
 " Oh, I understand!" replied Mr. Gee; "you don't like to 
 speak out before me ! And yet, perhaps, you would hardly 
 believe it, but at one time I really thought it was only a little 
 flirtation on the girl's part." 
 
 " Dear me, how singular!" observed Mr. Dossey. 
 
 " Yes! but it's all right now, you may rest assured," con- 
 tinued Mr. Gee; "for the other day I had some very serious 
 conversation with her on the tender point." 
 
 " And she confessed to you — a — that she really was in 
 love?" asked Mr. Dossey. " Well, she has never acknow- 
 ledged — a — as much to me — a " 
 
 " Of course not," returned Gee. " Why, you'd never ex- 
 pect that the girl would go breaking the subject to you — 
 would you?" 
 
 " Well, perhaps it would have been rather indelicate — a — 
 for the young lady to have taken as much upon herself — a — ," 
 replied Mr. Dossey. 
 
 " You see, the fact of it was," said Gee, " I suspected 
 there was a rival in the case; and, you know, situated as I 
 am with the family, I thought it better to inquire into the 
 business at once." 
 
 " Oh, indeed! And do you know — a — " observed Mr. 
 Dossey, " I myself had my suspicions there was a lurking at- 
 tachment in another quarter — a — But then, from all I could 
 gather of that person's character — a — he did seem such a 
 reprobate — a — that I could hardly bring myself to believe 
 that Miss De Roos — a — could have any regard for the fellow 
 —a " 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 85 
 
 " What! a reprobate, is he?" returned Mr. Gee; " and yet 
 pretends to be outrageously religious, eh?" 
 
 " Dear me," exclaimed Mr. Dossey; " why, I was given to 
 understand — a — he had not the least religion in him!" 
 
 " I dare say — not the least spark of it at bottom," re- 
 sponded Gee. " I'll warrant he's a pretty hypocrite " 
 
 " Oh yes!" replied Mr. Dossey, "continually up before the 
 magistrates, I hear — a " 
 
 " Well, I'd give something to meet with the scoundrel," 
 said Gee, with a nod of the head. 
 
 " For my part, I would go miles to avoid the fellow — a — " 
 remarked Mr. Dossey; u for if I was in the same room with 
 the profligate — a — I should consider myself disgraced for life 
 — a — They do say he's as strong as a horse — a — and loves 
 fighting almost as much as a bull-dog." 
 
 " Oh, he does — does he! Come, that's a new trait in his 
 character to me," observed Mr. Gee. " I should just like to 
 have a quiet five minutes with him in this room, though." 
 
 " I am delighted to have made the acquaintance of a 
 gentleman — a — whose sentiments so perfectly coincide with 
 mv own — a — ," said Mr. Dossey. " And I trust this acci- 
 dental meeting at the house of our mutual friend — a — may 
 grow into a closer intimacy — a " 
 
 " Well, I'm sure I hope so, too," answered Mr. Gee. " I 
 like the way in which you spoke out about that humbug." 
 
 " I can assure you, sir — a — as you are so anxious to give 
 him the punishment he so richly deserves — a — ," continued 
 Mr. Dossey, " if ever I happen to meet him — a — I shall 
 only be too happy to bring you face to face with him." 
 
 " Well done our side!" cried Mr. Gee. " Give us your 
 hand, my boy ! I'm proud to know you." 
 
 " And they kept on shaking hands until I — who had only 
 a moment before learned they were together, and was nearly 
 f rightened out of my life at the idea of their meeting— entered 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 Seeing the two gentlemen on such friendly terms, I imme- 
 diately imagined that the one had discovered some old friend 
 or schoolfellow in the other. Accordingly, smiling with de- 
 light to find the dreaded collision had taken so apparently 
 amicable a turn, I advanced towards them, and said to 
 
86 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Adolphus — " Dear me, Mr. Gee, I had no idea you were ac- 
 quainted with Mr. Dossey!" 
 
 The words were no sooner out of my mouth, than back 
 they both started, as if electrified. 
 
 " Gee!" screamed Dossey. 
 
 " Dossey !" roared Gee. 
 
 And immediately the Reverend Evelyn, who luckily had 
 his hat in his hand, made towards the door as fast as he 
 could, and was out of the house before the Honourable Adol- 
 phus, who immediately set off in pursuit of him, had got 
 down to the hat-stand. When I ran to the window, and 
 stepped into the balcony, I saw Mr. Gee tearing down the 
 street as hard as he could scamper, while Mr. Dossey was 
 cautiously emerging from under the area steps of the next 
 house to ours — where he had been secreting himself, and the 
 gate of which he had providentially found open. 
 
 I flew up stairs to Mamma, and having informed her of 
 my dreadful mistake, and the frightful scene that followed, I 
 told her I was convinced it would lead to bloodshed, and 
 finished with a fit of hysterics. 
 
 When I came to, Mamma assured me that my alarms were 
 quite childish, and that it was only my ignorance of the 
 world which led me to see misery in that which she knew 
 could but lead to happiness. The fact was, that up to that time, 
 she had — from an over sensitiveness on her part — felt a natural 
 delicacy about speaking to either of the gentlemen concerning 
 the nature of their intentions towards me. But fortunately 
 now, she felt it her duty, as a mother, to take the business 
 into her own hands, and to see both of the parties, and 
 learn from them what their intentions really were. As for 
 the little jealousy about which I had so needlessly alarmed 
 myself, why that ought to show me what a high value each 
 of the gentlemen placed upon my affections. So, without 
 more ado, she would go on directly, first to Mr. Dossey's 
 residence, and then to Mr. Gee's, and — without compromis- 
 ing either herself or me — ascertain which was disposed to 
 make me the most eligible offer. 
 
 " I have come to you, Mr. Dossey," said Mamma, on being 
 shown into that gentleman's library, " at the earnest request 
 of my poor dear daughter, Charlotte, who has told me of the 
 unfortunate rencontre that has occurred this afternoon at our 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 87 
 
 house. Of course I need not tell you, my dear Mr. Dossey, 
 that it has had the most dreadful effect upon Charlotte's 
 nerves, or that I have left my suffering child in bed. But 
 she entreated me, in such strong terms, to come on to you, and 
 extract a promise from you, as a man of peace, that there 
 shall be no blood spilt in this unhappy business, that I had 
 not the heart to refuse her. Oh! Mr. Dossey, it would indeed 
 be the death of my poor girl, if she thought that even a hair 
 of your adored head should be hurt through any affection — 
 however slight — you may entertain for her. Oh! Mr. Dossey, 
 let me, as a fond — fond mother, implore of you to grant me 
 this trifling favour." 
 
 " My much respected Madam," answered Mr. Dossey, who 
 grew bold when he saw he could make a favour of foregoing 
 the duel which he had never dreamt of till then, " My much 
 respected Madam, — a — Miss de Roos may rest assured — a — 
 however much my feelings might prompt me to seek satis- 
 faction — a — for the insults I have had heaped upon me by 
 that man — a — I met at your house this afternoon — a — still 
 my cloth, and a sense of my mission here, Madam, would 
 alone be sufficient to restrain me — a — . It is lucky for 
 this Mr. Gee that I have learned to love my enemies, — a — or 
 I certainly should not have slept in my bed till — a — but let 
 that pass." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Dossey," exclaimed Mamma, seizing his hand, 
 " how can I ever thank you sufficiently for this noble sacrifice? 
 Charlotte will, I know, live only to bless you for it. Indeed 
 — indeed, Mr. Dossey, you cannot tell how deeply — madly, 
 the innocent, artless girl loves you, and it was only to satisfy 
 her of your safety that I came hither." 
 
 " My dear Madam — a — I am obliged to Miss de Roos for 
 her consideration for me — a — " replied Mr. Dossey, coolly; 
 "but thank heaven! I know my duty to my erring fellow- 
 creatures — a — well enough to be able to subdue — a — that 
 raging lion Passion, when it is roused within me — a — . In- 
 deed, it was but a knowledge of the fearful acts — a — which 
 even the best of us in our moments of temper are often led to 
 commit — a — that made me fly — ay, fly like a coward, Ma- 
 dam, — a — from the presence of that exasperating man." 
 
 " Yes! I will allow he is an exasperating man," re- 
 sponded Mamma; u still I am sure that your better judgment 
 
88 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 when you reflect calmly upon all the circumstances of the 
 case, will tell you that his conduct — reprehensible as it seems 
 to have been towards yourself — is not altogether inexcusable 
 towards my daughter." 
 
 "Indeed, Madam! How so?" returned the Reverend 
 Gentleman, with hauteur. 
 
 " You should remember, Mr. Dossey," continued Mamma, 
 " that however much you may have loved my daughter — and 
 however much she in her heart may have wished you to love 
 her — still, as yet, you have never by any decided step, given 
 Charlotte to understand that you were desirous of claiming 
 the heart — you had only to speak — to command." 
 
 " Well, Madam," he answered, " perhaps I have been re- 
 miss in that respect — a — ." 
 
 " Remiss, Mr. Dossey! You have been cruel," returned 
 Mamma, emboldened by the confession she had extracted from 
 the Reverend Gentleman: " I alone know how much she has 
 adored you for your genius and virtue. But would you not 
 have called it presumption on her part, had she for one 
 moment fancied that her humble charms could have kindled 
 a flame in your noble bosom? I know it would only distress 
 you — who care not for worldly praise — were I to tell you 
 that she loved you for those poetic talents which she worships, 
 and which have for ever associated your name with the w T ise 
 and good. Nor will I wound your natural humility, by tell- 
 ing you how she has feasted over the eloquence of those dis- 
 courses of yours which have drawn crowds of admiring 
 nobles to listen to them. Nor will I offend your modesty by 
 informing you how your exquisitely beautiful Epic has 
 enchanted her day by day, or how she is always repeating 
 that divine passage of yours in the fourth Book, which is 
 indelibly engraven on my heart as well as hers, and which 
 
 begins dear me, 'tut-'tut — well, that is strange — I shall 
 
 forget my own name next. But you must pardon me. This 
 excitement, you see, is too much for me." 
 
 " My dear lady," answered Mr. Dossey, " I feel the force 
 of your observations — a — that is, the force of such of them at 
 least — a — as refer to my conduct to your daughter — a — the 
 others I pass by as mere vanities — a — . Still, as I cannot 
 deny the truth of all you have said — a — I will endeavour 
 to make some reparation at this, the eleventh hour, for my past 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 89 
 
 neglect — a — and if you will excuse me for a few minutes — a 
 — I will write a letter on the subject to Miss De Roos — a — . 
 In the mean time, perhaps, you would kindly endeavour — a 
 — to amuse yourself with a copy of my * Paradise Found' — a — . 
 It may enable you to refresh your memory about that passage 
 in the fourth Book — a — which Miss De Roos was so good as 
 to admire — a — ." 
 
 All the time the Reverend Gentleman was writing, Mamma 
 kept bursting out, exclaiming impulsively as she perused the 
 volume, " Beautiful ! Beautiful!!" Then Mr. Dossey would 
 look up, and smilingly ask which Book of the Poem she was 
 reading, and on being informed which it was, he would say — 
 " Yes, that — a — has been very much quoted — a — ," and then 
 continue writing. 
 
 At last the letter was finished and carefully sealed, and 
 Mamma, taking it, returned home full of joy. 
 
 " Look here, Charlotte, my dear," she said, holding up the 
 note, "do you know the hand-writing? Now didn't I tell 
 you — you foolish thing — this morning's adventure was the 
 luckiest accident that could have happened to you? And 
 here's a written proposal from Mr. Dossey, who, of course, 
 couldn't help allowing that he had been very much to blame 
 in not making you an offer before. Now let's hear what my 
 dear son-in-law, that is to be, says, for I'm dying to know all 
 about it." 
 
 On opening the letter, who can picture our surprise at 
 finding that the Reverend Gentleman, after confessing he had 
 been culpably remiss in never having openly declared his 
 passion to me before, and acknowledging that great excuse 
 was therefore to be made for Mr. Gee's conduct that morn- 
 ing, proceeded, in the most magnanimous way, at once to 
 resign all claim to my hand and heart — however much he 
 prized them — in favour of that gentleman; for Mr. Dossey felt 
 it was but a sacrifice he w r as in duty called upon to make, 
 Mr. Gee having been a prior friend and candidate for that 
 inestimable honour. 
 
 I never saw anybody in such a passion as Mamma at first. 
 She said it was very well to make a virtue of giving me up, 
 but she knew w^ell enough what it was. The poor weak 
 thing's vanity had been hurt at the idea of any person being 
 considered in the light of a rival to his own dearly beloved 
 
90 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 self, and of course he was but too glad to creep through any 
 moral loop-hole he could find. All she wished to goodness 
 was, that the man had only let fall some hint of what he 
 intended to do, and then he would not have got her to waste 
 her time over his sleepy " Paradise Found," which she had 
 always thought as dry as eating so much bran. However, it 
 is an ill wind that blows nobody any good, she added ; and to 
 tell the truth, she was delighted Mr. Dossey had resigned me 
 in favour of Mr. Gee, for, of course, now that gentleman 
 couldn't well help himself, and must make me a proposal then 
 and there. What, she would ask me, was Dossey, compared 
 to Gee? Why, the one was a mere nobody — while, at any 
 rate, Mr. Gee had got some of the best blood in the land in 
 his veins, and stood a very good chance of becoming one day 
 a Peer of the Realm. 
 
 As there was still time before dinner for Mamma to go 
 down to the Albany, and have an interview with Mr. Gee 
 on the subject, she sent Clayton for a cab, and started off, 
 telling me that I should be Lady Fortiwinx before many 
 years were over my head. 
 
 Luckily Mr. Gee was in, and received Mamma most 
 politely. 
 
 She then proceeded to tell him how shocked she had been 
 to hear of what had occurred at our house that morning, and 
 how, immediately on being informed of it, she had made it a 
 duty to visit Mr. Dossey, and get him to write a letter apolo- 
 gizing for his conduct, and undertaking to forego any claim 
 the Reverend Gentleman might fancy he had upon my affec- 
 tions. 
 
 When Adolphus had read the note which Mamma had laid 
 before him, he said it was a noble act on Dossey's part, 
 especially as he could see, from the wording of the epistle, it 
 had cost the Reverend Gentleman a severe struggle to do so. 
 Really it placed him very awkwardly, and he didn't know 
 how to act. 
 
 Mamma observing that Dossey's relinquishment of me had 
 not the apparent effect on Mr. Gee she had anticipated, 
 grew alarmed lest he too should affect the generous, and 
 both with equal magnanimity insist upon giving me up to 
 each other — while I, though possessed of a couple of suitors, 
 who declared they were dying with love for me, should be 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 91 
 
 forced still to remain single, through their both being ready 
 to make any sacrifice for me, but marry me. 
 
 Accordingly, Mamma said she was surprised to hear that 
 a man of Mr. Gee's excellent good sense should be so easily 
 duped, by such a transparent show of feeling on the part of 
 Mr. Dossey — when, with half an eye, anybody who knew 
 him could plainly perceive that he only had been prompted 
 by a dread lest Mr. Gee's well known, fine manly spirit, 
 should demand an immediate satisfaction, for his daring to 
 aspire to the same hand as his noble rival. 
 
 " What ! " answered Mr. Gee, "then you think this is 
 merely written in fear of me?" 
 
 " Most decidedly," returned Mamma. 
 
 " And that this man's dread of my vengeance," continued 
 Adolphus, " was the real cause of his consenting to relinquish 
 all claims upon the object of his love?" 
 
 " Oh ! I'm perfectly satisfied of it, and if you had seen him 
 yourself, you, with your natural quickness, would have been 
 the first to have been convinced of it," added Mamma. 
 
 " Well then, I'll tell you what I think I ought to do, Mrs. 
 de Roos." 
 
 " Yes, my dear Sir, what is it?" eagerly inquired Mamma. 
 
 " Why send you back to him, with a solemn assurance 
 from me that he need have no cause of alarm, as from this 
 time forth, I promise to withdraw whatever pretension I may t 
 have at one time conceived I had to the hand of Miss de Roos." 
 
 "Ah! that is so like your noble nature," said Mamma, 
 biting her lips with annoyance, to find herself again foiled; 
 " but don't you think you ought to consider my daughter's 
 feelings, rather than those of such a gentleman as Mr. 
 Dossey? I can assure you, Charlotte never had any real 
 regard for the man." 
 
 "Pardon me, Madam," he replied, quite coolly; "but I 
 think, from the warm terms in which Mr. Dossey speaks of 
 your daughter in his letter, it is very evident he must have 
 received some encouragement from the lady." 
 
 " Then I am to understand, I suppose," said Mamma, with 
 extreme sarcasm, " that the Honourable Mr. Gee's opinion of 
 the young lady whose affection he once sought, is such, that 
 he now thinks her capable of forgetting her former feelings, 
 as easily as some people seem to forget theirs?" 
 
92 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " No, indeed, my dear Mrs. de Roos, you misunderstand 
 me," he replied; " you see I do not blame your daughter in any 
 way, but I feel I have been as remiss as the Reverend Mr. 
 Dossey, if not more so. I ought to have spoken my mind 
 in more definite terms to your daughter, if I had expected 
 and hoped to have secured her affections. If mine was a 
 prior engagement, at least it required a prior offer. My 
 dear Madam, if during my stay at Brighton, I had once 
 thought that Miss de Roos was so eager to obtain a husband, 
 I should certainly have acted in a very different way from 
 what I have done." 
 
 " But, my dear Mr. Gee," expostulated Mamma; " could you 
 not, with your natural good sense, easily perceive — even in 
 the slight interview you had with Mr. Dossey — that he was 
 so eaten up with vanity, that he would be the very man to 
 cajole himself into the belief that mere civility on the part of 
 a lady, was positive admiration of him?" 
 
 "It may be so, Madam," answered Mr. Gee; "but you 
 really must excuse my attempting to separate two confiding 
 hearts — one of whom asks for a " Definition of Love," and the 
 other one writes impassioned lines in the lady's Album to 
 explain it." 
 
 Then Mr. Gee rose from his seat, and Mamma, seeing that 
 it was useless her pressing the point, rose likewise, and — 
 with a most dignified curtsey — took her departure. 
 
 On Mamma's reaching home, I could read in her face that 
 she had not been quite so successful as she had anticipated. 
 Indeed, it was extraordinary how downcast she looked. 
 When I inquired what was the result of her interview with 
 Mr. Gee, she related to me all that had occurred, and con- 
 cluded with a long tirade against man in general, and 
 Messrs. Gee and Dossey in particular. 
 
 I soon saw what a little silly I had been. It was plain 
 that Gee had loved me, and I couldn't help feeling he had too 
 good a cause of complaint, to give me any hope of ever 
 regaining his esteem. It made me shudder, too, when I 
 thought of the encouragement I had given to the addresses 
 of Mr. Dossey. How like it seemed to the beginning of the 
 fulfilment of Papa's words — " that my whole life would be 
 a snare — a trick, and — a lie." And yet, the next moment, I 
 felt the blood tingling through my frame, at the idea of being 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 93 
 
 flung aside by the very two gentlemen I had stooped almost 
 to court; and — though I knew I half deserved my fate — still 
 my vanity was so strong, that I was ready to adopt any 
 means which seemed to hold out a prospect of again bringing 
 them to my feet. 
 
 Mamma, too, rather inflamed than allayed my desire for 
 revenge. We both of us sat all the next morning without 
 speaking a word; thinking how we could devise some plan by 
 which to get at least one of them back, and so mortify the 
 pride of the other. Mamma assured me that it was hopeless, 
 and foolish trying to produce any effect upon Gee. Though 
 for myself, I was far more anxious to work an alteration in 
 his feelings than in those of Mr. Dossey. 
 
 At length Mamma persuaded me — if I only wrote to Mr. 
 Dossey one of those beautiful affecting letters which I knew 
 so well how to write — that his egregious vanity would be so 
 pleased that he would be certain to be caught by it, and come 
 back again — all penitence to me. Then again this would be 
 such a nice annoyance to that Mr. Gee, to think a mere mush- 
 room of a Clergyman had been preferred to him who was 
 closely connected with one of the oldest titles in the kingdom. 
 
 I sat down and wrote. Mamma looked over my shoulder, 
 and kept giving me hints as to what I should say. First, that 
 formal way of beginning would never do — then this expression 
 wasn't strong enough — and then I should ruin all if I didn't 
 throw my whole soul into the letter and make the man believe 
 I was brokenhearted without him. If I tore up one draft I 
 must have torn up half a dozen at least. Until at last, finding 
 it was useless my attempting the task, I threw down my pen 
 and told Mamma I could not do it. Then she sat down to 
 the desk, asking me where my pride was that I allowed my- 
 self to be cast aside — like an old plaything. Snatching up the 
 pen she soon scribbled off an impassioned note to Mr. Dossey 
 — in which I was made to confess such intense admiration and 
 love for the Reverend Gentleman, that my cheeks were burn- 
 ing with shame at myself all the while I copied it. 
 
 When I had written — directed, and — sealed it, I couldn't 
 help begging and praying of Mamma — as she loved me — 
 not to take it. But she had such power over me, that one 
 word from her was quite enough to upset all my strongest 
 arguments. Besides, I could see she was much more angry 
 
94 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 than even / was, at having been foiled in her artifices — and 
 that she was determined — at any sacrifice — not to be beaten 
 in her machinations. 
 
 As she was putting on her bonnet to go and deliver this 
 wicked letter in person, I was half tempted to run in and tell 
 papa — who was still in his study — of all that had taken place. 
 But then I knew so well that he would throw my own words 
 in my teeth, and remind me of his prophecies, that I hadn't 
 the courage to consult him on the matter. It was impossible 
 to help remembering, that a little more than six months ago 
 I had told him to believe in my virtue and honour — and was 
 it strange that I should want the heart to be the first to tell 
 him I had become the very trickster he had predicted. And 
 yet I knew he would be kind to me, and be sure to give me 
 good counsel. But my better resolves came too late. Mamma 
 returned to the room ready dressed, and in another minute 
 had left the house with my letter to Mr. Dossey in her hand. 
 
 Whilst I was still seated in the parlour, with my eyes fixed 
 on the fire, lost in a wretched reverie, I was suddenly startled 
 by a loud double knock at the door. It couldn't be Mamma 
 returned so soon — it was too early for visitors — and too 
 late to be any person to see Papa — for he had left a good half 
 hour at least. 
 
 In a minute or two the servant relieved my suspense, by 
 announcing — to my dismay — The Honourable Mr. Gee. 
 
 "Charlotte!" he said, advancing towards me, "I was un- 
 justly harsh to your mother when I saw her, yesterday, and 
 said things to her about you which I have called to-day to 
 ask your forgiveness for." 
 
 This he spoke in so different a voice and so unusual a man- 
 ner, that he quite frightened me. I was so unprepared, too, 
 for his generosity — so heart-broken at the remembrance of 
 what I'd done — that I could not say a word to him in reply, 
 and merely stretched out my hand for him to shake, as a 
 token that I still wished to be friends with him. 
 
 " Come, now," he added, as I turned my head away to hide 
 my tears; "I have hurt you, I see — and wronged you, I 
 know. Is it not so, my little one?" 
 
 Still my tears would not allow me to speak to him. 
 
 " I have never yet confessed to you, Charlotte, the love I 
 bore you," he continued; " and maybe this has led you to 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 95 
 
 fancy I was only trifling — where, indeed, I wished to be 
 serious! So all I want to learn from you is — in plain terms 
 — do you love Mr. Dossey?" 
 
 " By Heaven, I do not /" I said quickly, and should have 
 said more, only he shook me by the hand so heartily, that I 
 had not the courage to tell him the rest. 
 
 " There, I knew you didn't !" he answered. " This morning 
 I could not help recollecting, Charlotte, what you said to me 
 in the drawing-room — a little better than a week ago — when 
 I questioned you about Dossey; and I felt convinced — from 
 what you told me then — it could be only the fellow's over- 
 weening conceit that made him fancy my little one was sighing 
 for him. Wasn't that it, Lotty — eh?" 
 
 " Yes — that is — perhaps it was partly my fault," I stam- 
 mered out. 
 
 " That is, you were laughing at him, and he thought you 
 were in earnest — ain't I right?" he asked. 
 
 But every word he spoke on the subject struck so deep into 
 my heart, that I could not answer him; and indeed my whole 
 thoughts were upon that letter. All I hoped and prayed for 
 was — that Mr. Dossey was not vain simpleton enough to be 
 caught by the trick. I longed to throw myself at Adolphus's 
 feet, and confess the whole to him. But I knew he would 
 want to see the note; and if he did see it — he must hate me. 
 Besides, one hope was left. Mi*. Dossey might be from home 
 when Mamma called, and she would return with it unopened. 
 
 " Come, come, Lotty," he said, attributing all my grief to 
 the reflections he had cast upon me, " you mustn't think any 
 more of what I said in a moment of pique. You see that 
 fellow Dossey had so put me out, — and your mother happened 
 to call before I had time to cool down, — or else I'm sure I 
 never should have thought so meanly of you as to have sup- 
 posed you guilty of the conduct I attributed to you." 
 
 "No, Adolphus, it isn't that. I might have felt hurt at the 
 idea of parting with you for ever, but — a — but — a — ," again 
 the confession was on the tip of my tongue, and again I could 
 not stammer it out. 
 
 " There, don't let me have any more of those buts," he 
 answered, smiling. " I tell you once for all, I shouldn't have 
 given you up, if I hadn't thought that you had first discarded me. 
 Only you see, my dear girl, I never knew I loved you until an- 
 
96 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 other had made me jealous — and then, I will confess, I felt stung 
 at the idea of being distanced by a fellow like that Dossey." 
 
 "Oh! that I only dare tell you all!" I murmured, hiding 
 my face in my hands. 
 
 "Dare tell me whatf" he asked, in a half tetchy tone. 
 " What is this mystery? If we are to be as one, Lotty, don't 
 let us begin by having secrets from one another. Does it 
 relate to Dossey — that is all I want to know?" 
 
 "It does, it does," I cried; and I was about to rise and 
 throw myself at his feet, and tell him all I had done, when a 
 loud knock at the door transfixed me to my seat; but Mr. Gee, 
 turning his head towards the window, exclaimed, with an oath, 
 •*•' Why, there's that scoundrel Dossey coming in with your mo- 
 ther." Then fixing his eyes intently on me, he said from between 
 his teeth, " Charlotte! what is the meaning of all this?" 
 
 In a second they were in the room. Mr. Dossey was not 
 more astonished at the presence of Mr. Gee than was Mamma. 
 But Gee advancing to the middle of the room, said, in a quiet 
 tone, " Mr. Dossey, I am afraid we are both being tricked 
 here. Now, sir, a word with you. As a man of honour — 
 what brings you to this house again?" 
 
 On this, the Reverend Gentleman drawing my accursed 
 letter from his pocket, handed it, without a word, to Mr. Gee 
 — who read it, and then gave one look at me. "And the 
 young lady who wrote you this impassioned note," he said, 
 " has just sworn to me, Sir, by heaven, she loved you not." 
 
 Then, taking his hat, he bowed, and left the room, saying, 
 " Ladies, I wish you a very good day." 
 
 In a minute, Mr. Dossey also left, wishing us a very good 
 day. 
 
 Mamma and I remained silent for a quarter of an hour, at 
 least, ashamed even to look at each other. At last, she said, 
 "Was this your doing? How came Mr. Gee here?" 
 
 " He came by his own generous impulses, Mother," I replied, 
 with passion. " He came to offer me his hand and heart! and 
 you came bringing the token of the hand and heart I had to 
 give him. He came here thinking me all purity; you came 
 here showing him how foul a creature you had made me. 
 Yes, Mother, you — you who should have watched over me 
 and guided me to good — you who were first to teach me to lie 
 in those very things in which truth alone is — chastity. 
 
 "Oh! Mother! Mother! what will become of me?" 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 97 
 
 OFFER THE FIFTH. 
 
 " WHAT WILL BECOME OF ME ?" I SAID AT THE END OF THE LAST 
 CHAPTER, AND LITTLE DID I THEN THINK THAT THE FOLLOWING 
 EXTRAORDINARY EVENTS WERE ABOUT TO TAKE PLACE. l'M SURE 
 WHEN FIRST WE WERE INTRODUCED TO MR. SERTINGLEY, WE ALL 
 OF US THOUGHT HIM A PERFECT GENTLEMAN ; BUT ALAS ! MAN IS 
 SUCH AN INCOMPREHENSIBLE RIDDLE, THAT THE BEST WAY IS TC» 
 GIVE HIM UP. 
 
 Mamma and I didn't say a word to each other for several 
 days after that awkward and disagreeable affair I described 
 in my last offer. We were so distant and polite, and respect- 
 ful to one another — " I always " Ma'aming" her, and she 
 always " Missing" me — that any one would have thought we 
 had only just been introduced to one another. Papa seeing 
 that there was some difference between us, wanted to know 
 what had occurred, but, of course, Mamma didn't tell him 
 the truth, for her own sake; and, for myself, now it was all 
 over, I'm sure I was not going to enlighten him on the sub- 
 ject. Besides, I didn't take this affair so much to heart as I 
 did the one with Mr. Lacy. I was no longer a silly child; 
 and a pretty thing it would be to have that Mr. Gee, hearing 
 I was dying with a broken heart, indeed, for his sake! So 
 I kept continually assuring myself I never did care much 
 about him. For my part, when I came to think about it, I 
 couldn't help wondering how I could ever have been silly 
 enough to have seen anything at all out of the way in the 
 good-looking fellow, and, handsome as I might have thought 
 him at one time, I hated him now. 
 
 However, Mamma and I didn't remain in the sulks very 
 long, and when we did make it up, she told me she had de- 
 termined in her own mind upon one thing, and that was, to be 
 even with that Mr. Gee, and take very good care to let him 
 know we were neither of us worms, to be trodden upon by 
 him. She had been turning the matter over and over, and 
 had come to the conclusion, that the best way to be revenged 
 upon the gentleman was, for her to go down to Lord Forti- 
 winx, and let his lordship know what a pretty sort of a per- 
 son he had got for a brother. She'd tell him the whole story, 
 
 H 
 
98 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 and take very good care that' the story should lose nothing 
 in the telling. Besides, even supposing that the dear old 
 nobleman did not turn his back upon that Mr. Gee, at least 
 it would enable her to make his lordship's acquaintance. 
 Could she, as a mother, she asked me, allow that bad, bad 
 man to trifle with the best feelings of her poor dear daughter, 
 without so much as stirring a foot to have the villain 
 punished, especially when it might be the means of introduc- 
 ing us to a circle in which she had long wished to move. 
 Moreover, who could presume to look into the book of fate, 
 and say what it might not lead to. Perhaps I might become 
 Lady Fortiwinx — stranger things than that had happened, 
 and did happen every day. Then the poor despised Charlotte 
 de Roos, who wasn't good enough for a certain gentleman 
 we knew, might have the satisfaction of cutting the wretch 
 out of the title, by presenting his lordship with a dear little 
 innocent babe, that would live to be a blessing to its dear 
 mother, and a death-blow to the ambition of that Honourable 
 Mr. Gee — and, goodness knew, nothing on earth would give 
 her greater pleasure. 
 
 Accordingly, Mamma booked an inside place in the coach 
 I to Oxford, and started off as soon as possible for his Lordship's 
 seat in Witney. 
 
 When she got there, she was quite taken with Lord Forti- 
 winx; for though she knew he was just upon sixty, still she 
 declared he looked, and was dressed, quite like a young blood. 
 His hair was so beautifully curled, and the parting was so 
 natural, that if it hadn't been for a few locks of grey just 
 peeping out at the back of his neck, and the colour being so 
 intensely black, she should have given him credit for possess- 
 ing one of the finest "chevelures" in the world. As for his 
 teeth, they were the whitest and most regular she had ever 
 beheld! If they had belonged to an African, they couldn't 
 have sparkled more than they did. Only the worst of it was, 
 that when the dear old thing laughed, he would let her see 
 the two little gold prongs at each corner of his mouth. The 
 colour on his cheeks, too, was divine! At first, she was con- 
 vinced that it was the beautiful hue of health, and the rich 
 reward of a youth well spent; but when she looked at him 
 again, and saw how yellow he was under his poor eyes, it was 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 99 
 
 as plain as plain could be, that though he looked as healthy 
 as a hay-maker, still he was naturally as bilious as a methodist 
 preacher. Again, his whiskers were so regular and so jetty, 
 that she couldn't help wondering how, at his time of life, he 
 could be blessed with so black a pair. Though she wasn't 
 long in solving the problem; for when she saw them in the 
 sun, they were of as many colours as the silver side of a 
 boiled round of beef, and moreover they were as red as 
 mahogany at the roots. 
 
 The dressing gown he had on was made of the loveliest 
 black Genoa velvet, lined all throughout with crimson silk, 
 and fastened round the waist with a gold bell-pull; while his 
 trousers were of the same rich material as his robe de chambre, 
 and made to fasten round the ankle, in the Turkish style; 
 and to complete the costume, he wore on his feet a pair of red 
 morocco slippers, with the toes turned up, like a pair of skates. 
 
 All round his rooms were the most lovely oil paintings. 
 Some of them of nymphs bathing, or Venuses reposing, or 
 Dianas hunting, and other heathen goddesses, in the light 
 costume of the skies; and all showing how warm an admirer 
 his dear old lordship was of the beauty of the female form. 
 The statues, too, were the loveliest things she had ever 
 beheld! No nasty, ugly, cross-looking, bearded old sages, 
 whose wisdom seemed to lie in not shaving; but the most 
 beautiful figures of Eves, and Psyches, and Graces, — indeed, 
 everything to show his exquisite taste. Even on the mantel- 
 piece, there were two pets of little images of the principal 
 dancers at the opera, in biscuit ware; and here and there, 
 against the walls, was a coloured lithograph of some handsome 
 actress, as she appeared in one of the favourite burlesques, 
 which, from the writing in the corner, had been sent to him, 
 with her compliments. 
 
 The table was strewn with the " Books of Beauty," and 
 the "Flowers of Loveliness," and "Byron's Beauties;" to- 
 gether with a portfolio, which was filled with pictures of the 
 " Pets of the Ballet," and heads of pretty laundresses, and 
 handsome cigar women, and lovely pastry-cook girls, and 
 some French ones, very beautifully finished, of " Le Coucher," 
 and " Le Lever," and " LTnnocence," and " La Confession," 
 and " La Belle Esclave." 
 
 h 2 
 
100 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 When Mamma was ushered into his lordship's presence, 
 she found him seated in an easy chair before the fire, reading 
 one of George Sand's highly moral and particularly exciting 
 French romances, and with a box of dinner-pills and a glass 
 of water by his side on the table. Of course he received 
 Mamma — who is a remarkably fine-looking woman — with 
 the greatest courtesy; and she said she hadn't been in his 
 presence more than five minutes, before he complimented her 
 upon her appearance by some classical allusion to the heathen 
 goddesses, and dexterously pretending to be astonished 
 almost to incredulity when she informed him that she was 
 the mother of a daughter as old as myself. Throughout the 
 conversation, whenever an opportunity presented itself, he 
 would manage to drag in improbable anecdotes, which only 
 tended to prove what an extraordinary man he was, and how 
 he was admired by everybody, either for his extreme honour 
 or his prepossessing appearance. 
 
 "When Mamma had given him a highly coloured sketch of 
 Mr. Gee's behaviour to me, in which she took care to paint 
 me as angel, and Adolphus as a demon, the poor old gentle- 
 man ordered the servant to put some coals on the fire, and 
 declared that he was moved almost to tears to find that a 
 scion of his noble house should have so demeaned himself to 
 beauty and innocence, and that he should consider it a blot 
 on his hitherto unsullied escutcheon for the rest of his life. 
 
 " Ah! beauteous madam," he said, with a smile, " it cuts 
 me to the core to think that one who claims kindred to my- 
 self should have showm so little allegiance to loveliness, — and 
 lovely I know the fair lady must be, coming from such a 
 source, — for where the flower is beauteous, the bud is 
 beauteous also," he added, with an elegant bow and a sweet 
 smile. 
 
 Mamma, in return for this, blushed, simpered, and at last 
 replied — " Yes, my Lord, most of our kind friends have 
 allowed that my daughter is very lovely, but I fear that now 
 the bud you speak of is unfolding its fresher beauties, the 
 fading flower must droop its head." 
 
 Lord Fortiwinx gesticulated his dissent, and said, with a 
 bland smile — " Your exquisite modesty, Madam, blinds you 
 to your own excellence. But I can well appreciate your 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 101 
 
 feelings; for I remember, shortly after the Peace, being in 
 France, and as I am passionately fond of music — indeed, I 
 am considered to have a natural genius that way — I went, 
 one Sabbath to hear the singing at the royal chapel at Ver- 
 sailles. After divine service, I drew aside to allow the 
 Queen, who had formed part of the congregation, to pass, 
 when her Majesty, being struck with my appearance, I sup- 
 pose — for I was generally allowed to be not altogether ill- 
 favoured at that time — she, in the most pleasing way, ap- 
 proached me, saying — ' I perceive, monsieur, by the classicality 
 of your features and the manliness of your bearing, that you are 
 an Englishman.' — 'Madam,' I replied, with a bow of profound 
 respect — " I regret to state that I have not the good fortune 
 to be the happy subject of so beauteous a Queen.' — ' Mon- 
 sieur,' her Majesty replied, ' your country is honoured by 
 your belonging to it; for I see you are a perfect gentleman/ 
 And so unconscious was I of my own attractions, that I can 
 assure you, my charming Mrs. de Roos, that I blushed up to 
 my eyes at receiving so generous a compliment from so 
 illustrious a personage. — But let us return to your daughter, 
 Madam. I see you have been sadly distressed by Mr. Gee's 
 heartless conduct to the lovely young lady." 
 
 " Yes, my Lord," answered Mamma; " I was sure your 
 highly sensitive nature would enable you to understand what 
 my feelings were on finding that my little rose, after being 
 nursed in the bosom of a gentleman for awhile, should be 
 flung aside to wither, unnoticed and uncared for!" 
 
 " And that man," added his Lordship, " you tell me, 
 Mrs. de Roos, is my brother. Indeed, Madam, I blush to 
 own him as such! — Is your daughter young?" he asked, his 
 eyes glistening as he made the inquiry. 
 
 " Scarcely eighteen!" replied Mamma. " And if you saw 
 her, I'm sure you'd pity her from the very bottom of your 
 heart. Poor child! I can assure you her bright and exqui- 
 sitely expressive eyes are bathed in tears from morning till 
 night." 
 
 " The villain !" exclaimed his Lordship, with feigned 
 emotion, and tapping the table with his fingers, to make his 
 rings sparkle in the light. " You cannot tell how many a 
 pang that brother of mine has caused me before this, my 
 
102 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 dear madam. — I think you said your poor, dear young lady's 
 eyes were black and full?" he asked, with evident interest. 
 
 " Yes, your Lordship," answered Mamma, " they are ex- 
 tremely black, and full of fire, — yet beaming with tenderness. 
 — But I fear it will be a long, long time, before she gets over 
 this sad affair. If your Lordship knew of what an affectionate 
 and confiding a nature she is, I'm sure you could not, but be 
 deeply moved, to see her poor pretty cheeks blushing all over, 
 from very agitation." 
 
 " I am sure I should, Madam," responded Lord Fortiwinx; 
 " but I will not rest in my bed until I bring the treacherous 
 disturber of the fair lady's peace to account for his villany. — 
 Poor dear; evidently a girl of very deep feelings, and I have 
 no doubt, an exquisite figure, too?" he continued, looking 
 anxiously at Mamma for a reply. 
 
 " She is generally considered, my Lord, to have been re- 
 markably well favoured in that respect," replied Mamma; 
 " perhaps a little inclined to be stout, though I fear this early 
 grief will sadly reduce the pleasing rotundity of her form." 
 
 "Let us hope not, Madam," answered his Lordship, with 
 real emotion. " I shall not sit easy until I have obtained 
 some redress for the lovely young creature. It will not be 
 long before I hear the tale from her own beautiful little 
 mouth — for beautiful and little I am sure it must be." 
 
 " It is, your Lordship," replied Mamma. "Even her greatest 
 enemy must allow that, — if, indeed, a girl of her remarkably 
 sweet temper can have such a thing as an enemy in the 
 world. I knew your Lordship would befriend my poor Char- 
 lotte. The exquisite generosity of your sympathy, your 
 beautiful sense and regard for justice, your well-known spirit 
 of chivalry, and, above all, your reverence of beauty, assured 
 me you would protect an injured lady, even though your own 
 brother were the injurer." 
 
 "You do me honour, Madam," answered his Lordship, 
 bowing, " in having formed so high an estimate of my humble 
 character. Yes, Madam! I have always been the devoted 
 slave and admirer of lovely woman! I am ever ready to 
 avenge and protect the charming sex. I remember once, 
 during the Bath season, just after the balls had commenced, 
 being at the Assembly Rooms; and as I was paying my ad- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 103 
 
 dresses to the beautiful and accomplished Miss Vavaseur — 
 then the belle of the season, — I was much annoyed at per- 
 ceiving that, after having danced three quadrilles running 
 with the chief of the Cherokee Indians — who were all the 
 rage at that time — she stood up for a waltz with him. On 
 this, being accounted one of the best waltzers of the day, I 
 went up to the Indian Chief, and said, ■ Sir, perhaps you are 
 not aware, that it is the custom of this country, that, after a 
 gentleman has been honoured with the hand of a lady for one 
 dance, he should conduct her to her seat, and allow other 
 candidates for that honour a similar gratification.' The chief 
 looked at me sternly, and muttered something in his own 
 language, a knowledge of which I did not number among my 
 accomplishments. Being generally allowed to be one of the 
 best shots of my time, I was not at all alarmed, but coolly re- 
 plied, ' If, sir, you are desirous of construing my remonstrance 
 into an insult, I shall be delighted to afford you any satisfac- 
 tion — at any time — or at any place — either with pistols or 
 with swords (for I was famed for my fencing) — ay, or with 
 bow and arrow, if you please;' for I was an equally expert 
 archer. This brought the brave Chief to his senses, and, 
 seizing my hand, he told me, ' That the Thundercloud,' (mean- 
 ing himself) 'was gladdened at the courage of the pale-face ' 
 (meaning me) — ' and that he was proud to make my ac- 
 quaintance, for I was a perfect gentleman.' " 
 
 Mamma, who, during this not very probable anecdote, had 
 been exclaiming, " Indeed!" and " Bless me!" and "I should 
 never have believed it!" with great emotion, here rose to de- 
 part. Whereupon his Lordship assured her that it would not 
 be long before he demanded of Mr. Gee an explanation of his 
 unmanly conduct; adding, that however he might regret the 
 circumstance which had led to this introduction, still he was 
 much indebted to it, for having afforded him the exquisite 
 pleasure of making the acquaintance of so charming a lady as 
 Mamma was. 
 
 As I afterwards learnt from a little bird that came and 
 whispered it all in my ear, Mamma had no sooner taken her 
 departure, than Lord Fortiwinx rang the bell, and requested 
 to see Mr. Sertingley, who — being a poor relation of the late 
 Lady Fortiwinx — was a protege of his Lordship's, and occa- 
 sionally acted as his secretary. 
 
104 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " I wish, you, Frederick," said the old beau, as soon as 
 Mr. Sertingley had entered the room, " to prepare to go to 
 town on a little private business that I want you to look into 
 for me. The fact of it is, Mr. Gee has been playing the fool 
 with some girl in town; and the mother — certainly a remark- 
 ably fine woman — has been down here complaining of his 
 conduct. As the honour of the family seems to be a little 
 compromised, I should like you to go to town and pretend, 
 you know, to redress their wrongs — you see; or, indeed, do 
 anything you like, just to hush it up. It would never do to 
 have that fellow Gee in the papers again." 
 
 " I perfectly agree with your Lordship," answered Mr. Ser- 
 tingley, who was the most agreeable of gentlemen; for he was 
 always perfectly agreeing with everybody on every subject. 
 
 " Of course, it would never do for me," continued his 
 Lordship, " to be continually interfering about all the young 
 ladies that Mr. Gee chooses to deceive; and I shouldn't do it 
 in this case, indeed, only the mother, who, as I said before, is 
 a remarkably fine woman, has given me such a glowing de- 
 scription of her daughter's charms, that I should like you 
 yourself to go up to town and let me know the real facts of 
 the case, and whether the girl is anything like what the 
 mother makes out; for if she is only half as beautiful as she 
 says she is, I shall consider it my duty to go up to London 
 and see about it myself. Don't you think that's the best way, 
 Frederick ?" 
 
 " I perfectly agree with your Lordship," replied Mr. Ser- 
 tingley, with a profound shake of the head. 
 
 " And, to tell you the truth, what makes me the more eager 
 to look into the merits of the case is, that that hair-brained 
 brother of mine has certainly got consummate good taste of 
 his own." 
 
 " Oh, certainly," said Mr. Sertingley, with evident emo- 
 tion; " I perfectly agree with your Lordship in that respect." 
 
 " And besides," added Lord Fortiwinx, " it does strike me 
 as a downright piece of villany, for a man, calling himself a 
 gentleman, to trifle with the aifections of a fond, young, and 
 confiding creature — especially if she is possessed of such divine 
 attractions." 
 
 " I take precisely the same view of the case as your Lord- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 105 
 
 ship," replied the complaisant Mr. Sertingley ; " indeed, 
 there is no contradicting what your Lordship says." 
 
 " But, Frederick, we must be very careful of one thing," 
 continued the old beau; "you know the old proverb tells us, 
 that all mothers are prone to think their own geese, swans; 
 and if it should turn out that Mrs. De Roos has been enlist- 
 ing my sympathies for a mere ordinary-looking girl, why, of 
 course, you will understand as well as I do, that I should 
 consider Mr. Gee not at all to blame for his conduct." 
 
 " Just so, your lordship," said Mr. Frederick, lifting up 
 his hands; " no more should I; and no more would any one, 
 indeed, for the matter of that." 
 
 "But do not let us think so unfavourably of our fellow- 
 creatures as to think that this mother has been rousing the 
 best feelings of my nature, in favour of a girl that one wouldn't 
 stir a foot for. But it cannot be. The mother, though far 
 from a chicken, has still beauty enough left to tell you that 
 she certainly must have been a very charming creature in 
 her younger days; and if the daughter only takes after her, 
 the sweet little angel is exactly the poor, dear, trusting soul 
 that I should like to befriend and protect." 
 
 Mr. Sertingley paused for a moment, and bit his lips, as if 
 in profound meditation; and then, shaking his forefinger, 
 said, with great emphasis, " Very true, your Lordship — very 
 true; I'm precisely of the same way of thinking." 
 
 " However, Frederick, to prevent mistakes," added his 
 Lordship, "and so as to enable me to judge for myself, I 
 think it would be better if you could, by any ingenious means, 
 manage to obtain a Daguerreotype of the girl; for, Heaven 
 knows! if she looks well then, she must be very beautiful 
 indeed!" 
 
 " Ye — s — s — s, to be sure," replied Mr. Sertingley, in a 
 deep whisper, and throwing himself back in his chair, as if 
 struck with the novelty and truth of the remark — " I per- 
 fectly agree with your Lordship on this point. But, supposing 
 the lady turns out to be far from prepossessing in her ap- 
 pearance, would your Lordship wish me to send you her 
 portrait, then?" 
 
 " Why, of course not," returned Lord Fortiwinx, angrily. 
 "What, on earth should I want with it? You don't sup- 
 
106 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 pose I'm going to trouble my head for one moment about 
 the creature if that's the case? Do you fancy I'm such an 
 old fool as that." 
 
 " Certainly," replied Mr. Sertingley, intending to refer to 
 the previous part, and not the conclusion of his Lordship's 
 remark; " I'm exactly of that way of thinking." 
 
 " Hang it, sir," answered Lord Fortiwinx, rising, " do you 
 mean to insult me?" 
 
 At this Mr. Sertingley, who was very nervous, grew so 
 confused, that he stammered out, " Just so, my Lord, there's 
 no denying what you say." 
 
 "Leave the room this minute, sir," said his Lordship, 
 seeing Mr. Sertingley's confusion, "and prepare to go to 
 London immediately. You're a stupid booby, sir, and don't 
 know what you're saying." 
 
 True to the last, Mr. Sertingley quitted the apartment, 
 exclaiming, "Very good, your Lordship, I perfectly agree 
 with you." 
 
 In a few days, Mr. Sertingley was with us, bringing a 
 letter of introduction to Mamma, who was not long in rinding 
 out that he was related to Lord Fortiwinx, and was a young 
 man of very good expectations at his Lordship's death. This, 
 of course, made her particularly gracious to the agreeable 
 gentleman; and, from his always agreeing with Mamma in 
 the view she took of Mr. Gree's conduct, and, indeed, every 
 other point as well, they soon grew to be the best of friends. 
 Mamma was continually impressing upon me what an amiable 
 young man he was, and that Lord Fortiwinx was so attached 
 to him, that his Lordship would be certain to leave him a 
 considerable portion of his immense property in his will; and 
 that she was sure the gentleman was violently smitten, or he 
 wouldn't be there every evening, as he was. 
 
 As for myself, I must confess that though I was not parti- 
 cularly struck with Mr. Sertingley at first sight, still when I 
 came to know him better, his manner was so affable, and he 
 was always so thoroughly of the same opinion as myself, that 
 I found him win more and more upon me every day. Ap- 
 pearances certainly were not very much in his favour, though, 
 to do him justice, they did not go very much against Mm. 
 Not being stout, he looked much taller than he really was, 
 and being always dressed in black, quite plain, and having a 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 107 
 
 fair complexion, he had a very gentlemanly look. He was so 
 polite too, and apparently so much interested in the slightest 
 thing that happened to you, and so particularly careful lest 
 you should catch cold, and so anxious always to oblige one, 
 that I'm sure no one could have helped liking the man after 
 they had seen him once or twice. If you let fall your hand- 
 kerchief, he was delighted at the opportunity of picking it up; 
 if you wanted to wind off some silk, he was enchanted to be 
 permitted to hold the skein for you; if you came into the 
 room, it seemed to be the proudest moment of his life to hand 
 you a chair; if he accompanied you to the theatre, nothing 
 seemed to give him so much pleasure as to be allowed to put 
 on your shawl; at tea, too, he was in his glory if he could 
 only have the chance of taking your empty cup; while at 
 dinner he would carve up a whole chicken without ever tak- 
 ing his fork out of it; and at desert he was especially de- 
 lighted if you would allow him to crack nuts, or peel apples, 
 or cut oranges — and the way in which the dear man would 
 make them into wine glasses or baskets was remarkably sur- 
 prising — never once touching them with his fingers. Then, 
 again, his small-talk was positively charming; he always 
 knew the plot of the last new novel by heart; or else he had 
 some witticism to tell you, which was going the round of the 
 Clubs; or the latest astonishing discovery in science; or some 
 delightful bit of scandal of some poor dear in high life. Then 
 he had travelled a great deal with Lord Fortiwinx, and would 
 give you descriptions of the costumes or scenery of the dif- 
 ferent countries, or relate to you some romantic anecdote of 
 an adventure he had had with the guerillas at some road-side 
 inn; or else give you an account of the unsuccessful attempt 
 he had made at the ascension of Mont Blanc. He was a bit 
 of an antiquary, too, and it was quite delightful to walk out 
 with him in the streets, for he was always telling you what 
 old building once stood here, and what institution once stood 
 there, and how T such and such a place was the site of such and 
 such a palace, and how such and such a person had been born 
 in such and such a house. 
 
 Then he had a smattering of chemistry, besides, and would 
 inform you of the best thing to take grease spots out of silk, 
 and how to change a red rose into a white one, or else how 
 to clean white kid gloves without smell, or how to preserve 
 
108 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 furs from moths. Moreover, he was a little bit of a musician 
 into the bargain, and could play the flute, and used to accom- 
 pany me with it on the piano. Added to this, he could draw 
 very nicely, and would stamp in moonlight scenes or tomb- 
 stones on cardboard for my album. 
 
 Nor was Papa less pleased with him than ourselves, for he 
 would sit and talk with the old gentleman after dinner about 
 political economy, and discussing the doctrines of demand and 
 supply, till the coffee was nearly cold in the drawing-room. 
 So, really and truly, we could have known him scarcely a 
 week before we all of us agreed that Mr. Sertingley was a 
 most amiable person, and a perfect gentleman. Then, what 
 with hearing Mamma and Papa always speaking of him in 
 such high terms, and that Fanny always saying he was such 
 a nice man — though I must confess I did not like hearing 
 him praised by her, — and what with our always playing music, 
 or going out walking, together, and what with his polite at- 
 tention to me, and his extreme sympathy and care for me, 
 and hearing Mamma always telling him that she looked upon 
 him as one of the family, I very soon got to think him one of 
 the nicest, and most obliging and kind-hearted personages I 
 had ever met, and found myself speaking of him to Mamma 
 as Frederick. 
 
 I know he liked me, too, because whenever he called, he 
 always brought a beautiful pet of a bouquet. Then, again, 
 when Mamma took him to the Bosanquet's evening party, I 
 declare he wanted to dance all the evening with me, and when 
 I told him that I really must, just for the look of the thing, 
 stand up for a quadrille with somebody else, I declare he 
 never took his eyes off me until the set was finished, and 
 then he followed me about, like a footman. Moreover, at first 
 he wanted to have my Daguerreotype taken, though after- 
 wards for some reason I didn't understand then, he kept put- 
 ting it off, and putting it off, until at last he had the impu- 
 dence to propose the same thing to Fanny, which put me in 
 such a puff, that I told him we would neither of us sit for the 
 nasty dingy likenesses, which of course, everybody says, can't 
 help being a perfect resemblance of you. 
 
 To make a long story short, it wasn't many days after this, 
 before, finding me walking alone in the enclosure of our Cres- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 109 
 
 cent, lie, in a most complimentary manner, told me that life 
 would be a burthen to him without me, and requested to be 
 allowed to hope that he was not altogether displeasing to me, 
 and a pack of other highly flattering nonsense, that put me in 
 such a flurry, that I'm sure I can't remember what it was now. 
 All I recollect is, that the creature took my hand and kept 
 squeezing it so hard, that it was as much as ever I could do to 
 get my fingers apart, when he let it go, and that he attempted 
 to put his other arm round my waist, but of course I told him 
 that I could not allow anything of the kind, and begged of 
 him to remember that we were out in the public streets, and 
 that some of the neighbours would be certain to see us. 
 
 When I told Mamma what had occurred, I naturally ex- 
 pected that she would have been delighted; but, bless me, no! 
 " I had been very imprudent and hasty, I had; and she gave 
 me credit for more discretion, she did. Had I so much as 
 set eyes upon Lord Fortiwinx yet, she would ask me? and did 
 I know whether he would consent or not? Wasn't I as 
 well aware as she was, that Mr. Sertingley was entirely de- 
 pendent upon his Lordship's bounty, and a pretty state I should 
 be in, if the dear old nobleman, should happen to take an 
 aversion to me, and set his face against the alliance. What, 
 she would like me to inform her, should I do then? Mr. Ser- 
 tingley, no doubt, was a very amiable and polite man, and 
 perhaps, precisely the person to make me happy, but he was 
 a beggar — yes, a thorough beggar — that was, if his lordship 
 should take it into his head to turn his back upon him. And 
 if he did, was I such a silly as to fancy that Mr. Sertingley's 
 amiability would be sufficient for me to live upon? Would 
 his politeness pay my house rent, or his good temper put a 
 leg of mutton on my table, or did I think that I could get my 
 coals and candles, and washing done, for nothing, because he 
 had got a gentlemanly exterior. These were hard truths, 
 still they were truths, and it was her duty to tell them to me, 
 hard as they were. It really seemed to her as if young ladies, 
 now-a-clays, only thought of getting married, and never 
 troubled their heads as to how they were to live and pay 
 their way afterwards. Besides, who — as she said before, and 
 would say again — who could tell what might happen when 
 his lordship saw me? She would just, for one moment, ask 
 
110 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 me, should I ever forgive myself, if he took a fancy to me, 
 and I had to refuse him, because I had been in such a parti- 
 cular hurry to accept his trumpery secretary?" 
 
 This put me out so, that I couldn't help telling Mamma that 
 my affair with Mr. Gee had taught me such a lesson, that I 
 had made up my mind not to scheme any more, and as I 
 liked Mr. Sertingley, and had confessed as much to him, I 
 would be as good as my word, and if he was poor, share his 
 poverty with him. 
 
 " Very well, Miss — very well, go your own way," replied 
 Mamma; " only please to remember this, that when Mrs. Ser- 
 tingley finds herself and children starving, don't let her come 
 to me to seek for any assistance; for if she does, she mustn't 
 fancy me hard-hearted, if I shut the door in her face, and let 
 her and her amiable husband and family die of want." 
 
 " But you know there's no chance of that," I answered. 
 You always will go to extremes, Mamma." 
 
 "Extremes! — oh yes, extremes! certainly," returned 
 Mamma, with an air of offended innocence. " And there's no 
 chance of such a thing occurring — of course, there isn't. I've 
 no doubt you think your father would be stupid enough to keep 
 you and a great hulking amiable husband, riding about in 
 carriages, and doing nothing for your living all your days. 
 But I think I know your father better than that, Miss; and, 
 once for all, I tell you, Charlotte, that you have nothing to 
 expect from us. As you make your bed, so you must lie 
 upon it: if it be one of roses, I can only say I shall be de- 
 lighted for your sake; but if it be one of thorns, you must 
 bear it as you best can, for it won't in any way concern me. 
 However, thank goodness ! your gentlemanly Mr. Sertingley 
 has to go back to his master before the week's out, and ab- 
 sence, perhaps, may have the happy effect of cooling him 
 down; so I trust that you will in no way encourage his at- 
 tentions until we learn what Lord Fortiwinx's views may be." 
 
 After this, Mamma never left me alone with Mr. Sertingley 
 for a moment; and as she took care to be present when the 
 time came for his departure, our leave-taking was not so 
 affectionate as it might otherwise have been. 
 
 On reaching Witney, there was a pretty scene between 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. Ill 
 
 his Lordship and Frederick — for he was afterwards obliged to 
 confess the whole to me, as the reader will shortly see. Of 
 course, his lordship was all anxiety to learn from him what 
 kind of a lady I was, and to know what on earth could have 
 kept Mr. Sertingley so long in town, and didn't hesitate to 
 say that his conduct appeared very strange. 
 
 Nor did Frederick hesitate to agree perfectly with his 
 Lordship; but he said, in explanation, that the facts of the 
 case were of such a complicated nature, that he did not like 
 to form any opinion, until he had thoroughly sifted the whole 
 affair. 
 
 " Sifted the affair!" exclaimed Lord Fortiwinx, in a pas- 
 sion; "I didn't send you up to town for that, sir. You've 
 got a pair of eyes in your head, and could have told, I sup- 
 pose, at first sight, whether the girl was good-looking or not, 
 and could, at least, have written me word by the next post, 
 to say whether she was worth troubling one's head about — 
 couldn't you, sir?" 
 
 " Certainly, my Lord, there's no denying what you say," 
 replied Mr. Sertingley, a little alarmed at his lordship's man- 
 ner; " but the fact is, my Lord, Miss de Roos was absent 
 from home when first I got there, and as I expected every 
 day to be favoured with an interview, I did not like to trouble 
 your Lordship with a useless letter, especially as I could only 
 have told you that I had hopes, from the extreme beauty, 
 grace of deportment, and elegance of accomplishments of her 
 younger sister, Miss Fanny de Roos, that the lady herself 
 would be a model of female perfection." 
 
 " Oh ! what, got a beautiful little sister Fanny — eh, 
 Frederick?" said his Lordship, forgetting his ill temper. 
 
 " Even your Lordship can form no idea of the exquisite 
 nature of Miss Fanny's charms," responded Mr. Frederick. 
 "Eyes melting with love, lips like the rosy lining of the 
 shell, and a figure that Reubens would have given worlds to 
 have studied." 
 
 " Sweet little innocent!" ejaculated his lordship, quite 
 roused by the description. "But I knew, from a glance at 
 the mother, what the girls must be. Gad! it seems to be 
 quite a preserve for beauty! Well, my dear Frederick, and 
 
112 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Miss de Roos, of course she's more lovely still? charms more 
 mature, and beauty more made out, form rounder, and all 
 that sort of thing, eh?" 
 
 " I can assure your Lordship she is nothing to Fanny." 
 answered Mr. Sertingley, trying to keep off all description of 
 my personal attractions as much as possible. "Fanny is 
 divine — a little,^blue-eyed angel, dropped from the skies. 
 Oh ! if your Lordship could only see her rich auburn tresses, 
 like threads of red gold glistening in the sun, her cheeks like 
 ripe peaches, her teeth like pearls in coral; I'm sure one so 
 noted for taste as your Lordship would think her a second 
 Hebe." 
 
 " But leave Fanny alone for the present," continued his 
 Lordship; " and let me know something about the other one." 
 
 " Certainly, your Lordship," answered Mr. Sertingley; " but 
 you can have no idea of what a divinity the young lady is." 
 
 "Dear me, dear me," replied Lord Fortiwinx; "what. 
 Miss de Roos is so beautiful?" 
 
 "Pardon me, your Lordship, I was referring to Fanny," 
 said the indefatigable Frederick. 
 
 "Why, sir, you seem to have gone raving mad about Mis- 
 Fanny," replied his Lordship; "I sent you to town, sir, to 
 bring me back an account of Miss de Roos, and all I hear 
 from you is a wild, romantic rhapsody upon Miss Fanny!" 
 
 "Very true — very true; there is no contradicting what 
 your Lordship says," replied Mr. Sertingley, finding, from his 
 Lordship's tetchiness, that he had rather overshot the mark. 
 " But you see, your Lordship, she is so immeasurably superior 
 to the other lady, that I thought that a description of her 
 would please you more than any account — however flattering 
 — I could give you of the personal appearance of Miss de 
 Roos." 
 
 " It's very strange, then," returned his lordship, growing- 
 suspicious; "that Mr. Gee — who certainly is far from a bad 
 judge of beauty — should have been taken with the plainer of 
 the two." 
 
 " I am precisely of the same way of thinking, my lord," 
 answered Mr. Sertingley, a little alarmed; "but I believe 
 that circumstance can be easily accounted for, by the fact 
 that Miss Fanny was at school at the time Mr. Gee visited 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 113 
 
 the family, or else I am certain a man of his taste wouldn't 
 have hesitated for a moment between the young ladies; 
 indeed, for myself, I can't imagine any one having two 
 opinions in the matter, and besides, I think I've heard your 
 lordship say that Mr. Gee preferred dark beauties to blondes." 
 
 " Well, sir, and so do I," returned his Lordship. " So, Miss 
 De Roos is dark — perhaps you will be so kind as to let me 
 know that much, for as yet your head has been so full of her 
 sister, that you haven't condescended to supply me with the 
 least information concerning her." 
 
 " Your Lordship is very right — very right," replied Mr. Ser- 
 tingley ; " but really the young lady is so very ordinary in her 
 appearance, that when I first saw her — it was after her sister, 
 certainly — I was quite astonished to find her so — I think I 
 may almost say plain." 
 
 "Plain! it's very odd," answered his Lordship, still more 
 suspicious. " That's very extraordinary. The mother, too, 
 such a fine woman." 
 
 " Certainly, your lordship," replied Frederick; "but Miss 
 De Roos takes after the father — indeed, is afflicted with a 
 strong likeness to him." 
 
 " What! do you mean to say she's downright ugly, then ?" 
 asked Lord Fortiwinx. 
 
 " Pardon me, your Lordship; I would not, on any account, 
 insinuate anything of the kind," returned Mr. Sertingley, 
 considerably embarrassed — " What I meant was, that the 
 young lady is certainly far from handsome; yet I should not 
 like your lordship to understand from that that she is down- 
 right ugly. Her figure, which is decidedly the best part 
 about her, is not good, though it certainly is not bad — her 
 eyes, though not of a pleasing colour, I must confess have some 
 expression — her complexion, though it is not of that beautiful 
 blending of the lily and the rose, which your lordship so much 
 admires, still I don't think her greatest enemy could call it 
 sallow. Indeed, to be frank, and to do both you and the 
 young lady justice, I should say that she is — just passable." 
 
 " Then what the deuce can Gee have seen in the girl to be 
 so smitten with her?" asked his Lordship. 
 
 " Why, certainly, my Lord, that is singular. It must have 
 been her graceful manner, together with the powers of her 
 
 i 
 
114 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 mind," answered Mr. Sertingley, who knew his lordship's 
 aversion to women of mind: " for she certainly is a remark- 
 ably clever girl — indeed, almost as intellectual a woman as I 
 have ever had the pleasure of speaking to." 
 
 " Pleasure !" exclaimed his lordship, throwing up his hands. 
 "Ugh! — pleasure do you call it? There, that's enough! 
 She's intellectual, is she ? Then I'll be sworn she isn't beau- 
 tiful. I know the style of creature, if she's what they call a 
 superior woman. Hair dragged right off her forehead, like 
 a red Indian — wears blue spectacles — and has a complexion 
 as yellow as rhubarb — very philanthropic and very bilious — 
 loves her whole species, and growls at everybody about her." 
 
 " Your Lordship is too severe upon the young lady," said 
 Mr. Sertingley," after he had finished his forced convulsions 
 at his lordship's satire. "Keally you do not do her justice. 
 I can assure you hers is real talent, not a mere affectation of 
 it, to gild her plainness. She would talk astronomy to you 
 by the hour." 
 
 " Would she? — not if I know it. Still if she is so intellec- 
 tual," exclaimed his Lordship, whose suspicions were not alto- 
 gether allayed — " how came it that Mr. Gee could have been 
 so charmed with her — for he's no more attached to intellect 
 than I am?" 
 
 " That, certainly, is very true, your Lordship," replied Mr. 
 Sertingley, delighted at the turn the conversation had taken. 
 " But the young lady has such a charming way with her — 
 indeed, there is aje-ne-sais-quoi about her — you understand 
 what I mean, your Lordship?" 
 
 " No, hang me if I do," returned Lord Fortiwinx. 
 
 * Why, a peculiar something in her manner and expres- 
 sion," continued Mr. Sertingley; "such a frankness of dis- 
 position, and elegance of language, that I can assure your 
 Lordship, that though I was far from pleased with the lady at 
 first sight, still, I'd not been in her company more than three 
 times, before I began to experience that she was enslaving 
 me in just such a way as I've no doubt she enchanted Mr. 
 Gee." 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" said the old beau, half musing to himself, 
 " that is it. So, she has smitten you, has she?" 
 
 " Why, the fact is, your Lordship," returned the abashed 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 115 
 
 Frederick; "I saw at a glance that she was not the kind of 
 person to please you, and as you yourself have often been so 
 kind as to say you should like to see me comfortably settled 
 in life, I thought that although Miss De Roos could never 
 expect to gain your admiring glance, still she would do very 
 well for one so humble as myself." 
 
 " Hem! very modest of you, I'm sure," muttered his lord- 
 ship. "Well?" 
 
 "Again, it was such a nice, amiable, and respectable 
 family," continued Mr. Sertingley, "and though the girls 
 have no immediate property, still, from the manner in which 
 the father lives, and the extent of his practice, I have no 
 doubt he would leave them both very well off at his death." 
 
 " But if Miss Fanny is so much more beautiful, why not 
 have taken her?" asked Lord Fortiwinx, slily. 
 
 " Oh, your Lordship," replied Mr. Frederick, bowing, " I 
 did not dare to think for one moment of looking with appro- 
 bation upon one whom I felt satisfied your lordship would be 
 so pleased with. Besides, she is the younger daughter, and 
 would not expect to have so large a share of her father's 
 wealth as her elder sister." 
 
 " Very prudent of you, Frederick," added his Lordship. 
 " I'm glad to see you show so much discretion." Then, after 
 thinking awhile, he continued, sneering, " But come, as you 
 say you should like to marry into the family, and as it is only 
 out of consideration to me that you take the elder sister — and 
 as, from the very glowing description you have given me of 
 Fanny's charms, it is very plain to see you have been a little 
 bit touched in that quarter; and, as I don't like blondes, why, 
 I'll be equally generous to you, and give you not only my 
 free permission to marry Miss Fanny, but also promise, out 
 of my own pocket, to make up any little difference there 
 might be in the girl's expectations; for I should not like you 
 to be influenced by any mercenary views in the matter." 
 
 " Your Lordship is, I'm sure — is extremely good, eh, eh!" 
 exclaimed Mr. Frederick, considerably alarmed at his Lord- 
 ship's whim. 
 
 " There, there, my boy, let me have no professions of gra- 
 titude," interrupted the cunning old beau, smiling at the 
 success of his plan. " I promised your poor aunt, the late 
 
 i2 
 
116 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Lady Fortiwinx, who, thank heaven, is now in a better place, 
 that I would see you comfortably provided for; so you may 
 go back to town, and arrange it all with Miss Fanny, and 
 I'll be with you shortly afterwards, and make it all right with 
 the father." 
 
 Frederick endeavoured to explain; but Lord Fortiwinx 
 roguishly pretended to construe his embarrassment into an 
 over sense of gratitude; and, at last, told him, half laughing 
 to himself, that he wouldn't hear a word on the subject, for 
 he felt convinced that he had only done what was right, and 
 that such a profusion of thanks was really annoying to him. 
 
 Poor Mr. Sertingley came up to me in a most dreadful state 
 of mind; and, as I saw something was troubling him, I kept 
 continually inquiring what made him appear so low-spirited 
 and unhappy. At last, when he had put it off as long as 
 ever he could, lie told me, that on the morrow he expected 
 Lord Fortiwinx to be in town, and said that he felt it was 
 his duty no longer to keep from me the knowledge of a certain 
 circumstance, of which his love for me had been the sole 
 cause. Then, after a great deal of coaxing, and assuring 
 him that, whatever the circumstance might be, my love for 
 him would make me overlook it, I at last extracted from 
 him, bit by bit, a complete confession of all that had occurred 
 between him and that horrid old Lord Fortiwinx. Of course, 
 he kept endeavouring to explain it all as he went on, and 
 reminding me that nothing but his extreme admiration of 
 me could have made him paint me in such dingy colours; 
 and though, of course, I was in his eyes an angel, still, 
 knowing his Lordship's love of beauty, he had been obliged 
 to make me out to him a very ordinary mortal. But when 
 my gentleman told me how highly he had been obliged to 
 extol that Miss Fanny, in order, of course — oh, yes! — to 
 make his Lordship think her everything, and poor me nothing, 
 I couldn't bear it any longer; but told him very plainly, that 
 I didn't see — even though he had thought it requisite to cry 
 me down — that there was any positive necessity for his crying 
 Miss Fanny up to the skies, in the very passionate way he 
 appeared to have done. And on his proceeding to tell me 
 of the pretty scrape he had got into through it, and that his 
 Lordship had given his consent to Frederick's union with 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 117 
 
 that very beautiful and charming little hoyden of a sister of 
 mine, " with lips like the rosy lining of the shell" — indeed, I 
 told him that it served him perfectly right, and that, perhaps, 
 he had much better transfer his affections to the young lady 
 he seemed to think so highly of, and, on no account, allow poor 
 mere passable me, with my not a bad, but not a good figure, 
 to stand for one moment in his way. 
 
 "But Charlotte, my love, though I perfectly agree with 
 you," expostulated the agreeable crocodile, " that it was very 
 imprudent of me to give his Lordship so glowing a descrip- 
 tion of your sister — whom, believe me, I love only for your 
 sake; still, you must admit, my darling, that I did it all for 
 the best; and though I cannot help allowing, with you, that 
 my folly deserved the punishment it has met with, yet I am 
 sure you will not be hard-hearted enough to refuse me a 
 helping hand to extricate myself." 
 
 " Really, I cannot see of what use I can be in this matter," 
 I answered, with extreme outward civility, but great inward 
 rage. " Upon my word, it seems to me that I have nothing to 
 do with it. His Lordship has given you his consent to marry 
 Miss Fanny, who is certainly a very charming young lady; 
 and it appears to me, that all that remains to be done is to 
 get her to accept you; and the only way that I see for me to 
 help you, is to intercede with her on your behalf; and that, 
 I'm sure I shall be delighted to do; — indeed, will go directly, 
 if you wish," I added, rising. 
 
 " No, Charlotte," he said, stopping me; " it is easy to 
 see that you are offended. Indeed, I^do not care for Fanny, 
 but love only you. You were the paragon whom I was paint- 
 ing, though I christened the picture Fanny." 
 
 " Offended! Well, that is amusing. Offended!" I ex- 
 claimed, with my blandest smile, though I would have given 
 the world to have had a good cry. " Indeed, I don't know 
 why I should be offended. — Oh, yes! certainly, I'm perfectly 
 convinced you meant the picture for me, only it is very 
 strange, I wasn't aware that I had got auburn tresses, like 
 threads of red gold, before. But there's a young lady not 
 a hundred miles from here that I know has, — perhaps, you 
 would like me to go and call her?" 
 
 " Charlotte! Charlotte!" the insinuating storyteller con- 
 
118 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 tinued; "you know as well as I do the reason of my de- 
 ceiving his Lordship, and that it was solely done to secure 
 you to myself — you. whom I prize beyond everything in the 
 world." 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Sertingley," I replied, with a very stiff 
 bow: " I'm sure it's very kind of you, and it says a great 
 deal for your generosity, to set so high a value on a poor 
 creature who is just passable." 
 
 " I know your natural good sense will make you think 
 better of this by-and-by, Charlotte," said the complacent Mr. 
 Sertingley, whom there was no putting out of temper. " I 
 may have annoyed you by what I have done, but I'm satis- 
 fied that, when you consider it calmly by yourself, you will 
 see that I was only actuated by the best of motives to your- 
 self. And now, come, I have but one request to make. Once 
 for all I assure you, on my honour, I have no more regard 
 for Miss Fanny than that she is the sister of one, whom I 
 love to idolatry; so after this assurance, promise me that 
 you will not be offended by my appearing to be more at- 
 tentive to Miss Fanny than yourself in the presence of 
 Lord Fortiwinx. Come now, promise me this, like a good 
 sensible girl." 
 
 " Oh yes, I'll promise, certainly," I answered, as bitterly as 
 I could. "Pray don't consider me for a moment; so I beg 
 of you not to stand upon any ceremony with me. I can 
 assure you, Mr. Sertingley, it will make no difference to me, 
 and I dare say will not be very disagreeable to her. So, you 
 see, you have my perfect consent." 
 
 " Well, Lotty, I shall take you at your word," he had the 
 impudence to say, though anybody might have seen, that I 
 didn't mean what I was saying. " For I am satisfied, that 
 when it is all over, you will be the first to laugh at your 
 foolish jealousy. And now about mine " 
 
 " Yours, sir?" I said, drawing myself up with extreme in- 
 dignation; "I am not aware that my conduct has been in any 
 way open to suspicion." 
 
 " No, Lotty; nor will it, I am certain, ever be with me," he 
 replied, considerably abashed. " But yours is the very 
 beauty to win his Lordship, and should he become enamoured 
 of you, you'd be lost to me for ever. So give me your word, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 119 
 
 dearest, that when he comes, you will do all you can to make 
 yourself as unamiable as you can; and, if possible, so to dis- 
 guise yourself as to look almost as unattractive as I have 
 painted you to him. Remember, for both our sakes, that I 
 am entirely dependent upon him." 
 
 " Oh yes, certainly," I said, with coolness; " I give you 
 my word, Mr. Sertingley, I will, if possible." 
 
 " There's a good, kind girl," he returned, " and now that 
 I have your assurance, that you will aid me in this my dilemma, 
 let us change the subject, and talk of more pleasant things." 
 
 Then he went on chattering a pack of fine things that I 
 didn't pay the least attention to, but only answered " Yes," 
 or " No," or " Dear me, how singular," until at length, seeing 
 that I was rather difficult to please, he left, thanking me for 
 my promised assistance, and reminding me that everything 
 depended upon me. 
 
 " Does it?" I said, to myself, as soon as he had left; "then 
 I'll take good care and teach you, Mr. Sertingley, to remem- 
 ber, and let his Lordship see, that Miss de Roos is something 
 more than passable," and I looked at myself in the glass, and 
 flung my ringlets back over my shoulders. " And the beauty 
 of it is, too," I continued, smiling to myself, " that I can see 
 a pretty storm brewing for Mr. Frederick in another quarter." 
 For, of course, I wasn't going to tell him that there was 
 another person in the case, whose permission he ought to ask, 
 before he pretended to pay his addresses to Miss Fanny. And 
 I should be very much mistaken if, when her lover, Mr. 
 Brooke, found the agreeable Mr. Sertingley making believe 
 to be violently attached to his darling Fanny, he didn't make 
 my fine gentleman suffer for his duplicity. And it would 
 only be serving him perfectly right — so it would. 
 
120 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 OFFER THE SIXTH. 
 
 I DARE SAY MANY OF MY READERS WILL SAY THIS IS NO OFFER AT 
 ALL, STILL AS I KNOW FOR A POSITIVE FACT THAT LORD FOR- 
 TIWINX INTENDED TO MAKE ME A PROPOSAL, OF COURSE IT IS 
 BUT RIGHT THAT I SHOULD MENTION HIM AMONG MY OTHER 
 SUITORS. BESIDES, IT IS SOMETHING FOR A LADY TO BE ABLE TO 
 SAY THAT SHE HAS NUMBERED NOBLEMEN AMONG HER OTHER 
 ADMIRERS, AND THEREFORE I'M SURE l'M NOT GOING TO OMIT 
 GIVING AN ACCOUNT OF IT HERE. 
 
 A nice scene there was altogether when Lord Fortiwinx did 
 come to town. I was so determined to show his Lordship 
 whether I was merely passable or not, that I let down my 
 back hair and did it all in ringlets, till they covered nearly the 
 whole of my shoulders. Then I put on my pink brocaded 
 silk evening dress, which was very full in the skirt, and fitted 
 me so beautifully, that his Lordship would soon see whether 
 my figure was " neither a good nor a bad one," indeed. And 
 when at last I had finished beautifying myself, I took three 
 large lumps of sugar, moistened in Eau de Cologne, to 
 brighten up my eyes a bit, and so prove to Lord Fortiwinx 
 whether they were the same dull things that Mr. Sertingley had 
 made them out; and all the way down stairs I kept biting my 
 lips, to make them red, and rubbing my cheeks to improve 
 my colour, just to show his Lordship whether my complexion 
 was of that beautiful mingling of the rose and the lily or 
 not, which he so much admired. 
 
 When I entered the room, I could see the charming effect 
 I created, not only upon Lord Fortiwinx, but also on Mr. 
 Frederick, who went as white as Irish linen, while his Lord- 
 ship looked at him as black as bombasin, as much as to say, 
 so this is the young lady that you gave me to understand was 
 a mere ordinary -looking creature; oh! you wicked, good-for- 
 nothing story, you. Bless me, too, if that proud Miss Kate 
 Beauchamp — whom Mamma had asked to meet Lord Forti- 
 winx, just because she happens to be highly connected — 
 didn't look as cross as two sticks when she saw the dear old 
 nobleman smile so graciously on being introduced to me, and 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 121 
 
 heard him pay me one of his sweet, pretty, mythological com- 
 pliments. And there was Mr. Frederick frowning away at 
 me directly his Lordship's back was turned; though, when- 
 ever the old gentleman hcippened to turn round, of course 
 Mr. Sertingley was pretending, I have no doubt he called it, 
 to make himself as agreeable as possible to that Miss Fanny. 
 But it was so beautiful, for I wasn't going to see the wretch, 
 after he had offered to me, making love to my own sister be- 
 fore my very eyes, without taking the least notice of it; so to 
 be even with him, and make him just as jealous as he was 
 making me, I made a dead set at his dear old Lordship, and 
 kept giving him compliment for compliment, and laughing 
 and flirting away with the conceited old thing, in such a way, 
 that Mamma — just after I had finished singing my French 
 "Roman" of " La Fidele Beryere" — couldn't help whisper- 
 ing, as I passed by her, "Oh, you pet!" and Mr. Fre- 
 derick, either out of spite, or because he found Miss 
 Fanny so much more amiable than myself, redoubled his 
 attentions to her. As luck would have it, just as Mr. 
 Sertingley wa s saying something particularly sweet to that 
 sister of mine, who should march in but Mr. Brooke; and 
 seeing his dearest angel seated on the sofa close to Mr. 
 Frederick, he sat himself down, in a huff, next Miss Beau- 
 champ, and began paying violent court to her. Then, oh 
 dear! wasn't it beautiful! there were the whole six of us, as 
 ill-tempered as railway clerks, and all pretending to be as 
 amiable as servants coming after a place. Lord Fortiwinx, 
 I could see, was as savage as savage could be with Mr. 
 Frederick, for having deceived him in the shameful way he 
 had, and kept flattering me loud enough for him to hear, and 
 so as to let him know that he saw through all his horrid 
 duplicity; while Mr. Frederick, half to make his Lordship 
 fancy that Fanny was the idol of his heart, and half out o* 
 spite to me, kept smiling and looking at that young lady in a 
 way that made me feel as if I could have boxed his ears. But 
 the more he went on with that sister of mine, the more I was 
 determined to be even with him, and the more I went on with 
 Lord Fortiwinx, — now asking his opinion on one of the 
 beauties in the last year's " Flowers of Loveliness," and as I 
 leant over his shoulder, allowing my ringlets just to brush 
 
122 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 against the side of his face, — and now asking him if he un- 
 derstood the language of flowers, and getting him to say a 
 host of fine things to me, in roses, and lilies, and violets, and 
 pansies. And the faster I flirted with his Lordship, the 
 faster Mr. Frederick flirted with Miss Fanny; who, being 
 tremendously put out at observing Mr. Brooke hand-and-glove 
 with Miss Beauchamp, was in such a way, that I could see 
 she was determined to make him suffer for it; and the oftener 
 he kept laughing and whispering with Miss Kate, the oftener 
 she kept laughing and whispering with Mr. Sertingley. All 
 the time, too, Fanny kept frowning at Miss Beauchamp, for 
 daring to engross the whole attention of her darling Mr. 
 Brooke: but the more she looked daggers at Miss Kate, the 
 more did Miss Kate look daggers at her. So that when 
 Mamma came to each of us round the room, and hoped that 
 we were all enjoying ourselves, of course we every one of us 
 declared that " we were never so much amused in all our 
 lives," and "never passed such a pleasant evening before;" 
 though I'm perfectly satisfied, if the light had gone out, we 
 should all of us have been trying to pinch or tear one another 
 to pieces in the dark. 
 
 But the worst of it all was, that I did get so jealous of Mr. 
 Frederick, and consequently so persevering in my attentions 
 to Lord Fortiwinx, that however much he might have been 
 taken with me at first, I declare, he kept getting cooler and 
 cooler, as I kept endeavouring to make myself more and more 
 attractive to him; until at last, I do verily believe that my 
 amiable artifices, and continual compliments upon his youthful 
 appearance, became quite offensive to him; for, if he didn't 
 get up from his chair, and march right over to the other end 
 of the room. And when I saw this made that Mr. Frederick 
 change his stupid frowns into a nasty spiteful smile at me, I 
 could not sit easy on my chair; so, making an excuse, I 
 jumped up, and sailed across the carpet, with my neck up as 
 straight as a swan's, right past him and Miss Fanny, into the 
 back drawing-room, after his Lordship. But no sooner was 
 I at his elbow again, than off he tottered to Mamma, and 
 wishing her good night, left the room with a most dignified 
 bow to myself. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 123 
 
 This was a general signal for leaving: and I declare, if Mr. 
 Brooke didn't march off arm-in-arm with Miss Kate Beau- 
 champ, without ever noticing Fanny; which was such a blow 
 to her, that directly he had gone, I could see her biting her 
 lips, to prevent the tears starting into her eyes, all the while 
 she was shaking Mr. Sertingley's hand, as she wished him 
 good night, and then away she went to her room to have 
 a good cry. 
 
 However, I wasn't going to make quite such a silly of my- 
 self as that, so, going over to Mr. Sertingley, I sat myself 
 down by him on the sofa, and said in the most apparently 
 unconcerned way possible — 
 
 " I'm delighted to see, Mr. Sertingley, that you have passed 
 such a pleasant evening. Fanny's a charming girl — isn't she? 
 so frank and unaffected in her manner, don't you think so ?" 
 
 " I perfectly agree with you, Miss de Roos," he answered, 
 determined not to be beaten. " I was not aware how amiable 
 your sister was until this evening." 
 
 " Oh, I'm so glad to hear you say so," I replied, throwing 
 up my hands as if in ecstasy; "for she is a dear, good pet, 
 and I'm sure everybody that knows her must love her; don't 
 you think so, Mr. Sertingley?" 
 
 " Precisely, — that, I can assure you, I do, Miss de Roos," 
 he said, in his nasty over -complaisant way; " and I am de- 
 lighted to see that you and Lord Fortiwinx got to be such 
 good friends. Quite a lady's man, is he not?" 
 
 " Oh yes ! I perfectly agree with you," I responded, deter- 
 mined to pay my gentleman off in his own coin. " Oh, I do 
 think he is one of the nicest men I ever met with in the 
 whole course of my life — such wit," I continued, pretending 
 to go into ecstasies, " such elegance, such taste, I don't think 
 I was ever so completely taken with any gentleman at first 
 sight before. I'm sure I shall do nothing but dream of him 
 all night. Don't you think he's very handsome?" 
 
 "As for Miss Fanny," he exclaimed, getting so angry that 
 he wouldn't even answer my question, and determined to make 
 me as savage with him as he was with me, "I can assure 
 you, Miss de Roos, she has so charmed me, that I am certain 
 that I shall do nothing but think of her for months to come, 
 
124 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 and always look back upon this evening as the happiest I have 
 ever known Oh ! she is a perfect little fairy !" 
 
 " Lord Fortiwinx," I ejaculated, lifting up my eyes, " is 
 to me an angel! Any one to be in his company half an hour 
 must, I am sure, adore him; and is it not wonderful how well 
 he carries his years? Really, any one, to look at him, would 
 think he w r asn't a day more than thirty. For myself, I should 
 consider it the proudest moment of my life, if I could in any 
 way contribute to his happiness." 
 
 This, I could see, by the quivering in the corner of his eye, 
 was almost more than he could bear; and he only answered, 
 " Indeed, I'm delighted to hear you say so. However, as it 
 is growing late, I will not keep you up any longer, Miss de 
 Roos; and perhaps you would be so kind as to tell your 
 charming sister in the morning, that I will call to-morrow 
 with the tickets I spoke of, and that if she and her respected 
 Mamma would honour me so far as to allow me to accompany 
 them, I shall consider myself the most enviable of mortals." 
 
 " I will make a point of doing so, Mr. Sertingley," I replied, 
 with extreme civility, "and I'm sure it's very good of you:" 
 though I felt that if he didn't go directly I should burst out 
 crying, and then I should never afterwards forgive myself for 
 my weakness; so I merely added, "and if I should see Mr. 
 Brooke — you know Mr. Brooke, to whom my sister is en- 
 gaged? — would you like me to tell him what you say as well?" 
 
 This made him colour up to his temples; and I was so glad 
 to see I'd got the best of it, and that, if he didn't care for me, 
 at least he did for him. 
 
 '•'Miss de Roos can use her own discretion in that case," 
 was all he answered, and taking a very formal and distant 
 farewell, he stalked out of the room. 
 
 "Goodnight, Mr. Sertingley," I said; and then calling him 
 back, I wound up my victory by asking him, whether if 
 Lord Fortiwinx should call on the morrow, as he had pro- 
 mised me he would, — whether he would like me still to be 
 careful, and not to let his Lordship know how he had behaved 
 to him. 
 
 But all the monster answered was — " I'm afraid, Madam, 
 from the marked effect your conduct produced upon his Lord- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 125 
 
 ship this evening, he will not keep his appointment, and you 
 will have little chance of seeing him again. However, a writ- 
 ten communication will be sure to reach him, and to me it is 
 perfectly indifferent, whether the circumstance is kept secret 
 from him or not." 
 
 This, I may say, was almost the conclusion of my love affair 
 with Mr. Sertingley; for when he called the next day, I was 
 so cool and distant to him, that he could easily see from my 
 manner that he had no hopes of conciliating me. So to spite 
 me, the mean thing — knowing my jealousy of his flirtations 
 with Miss Fanny — must needs set to work, paying her all 
 the attention he could, till at last, what with my always treat- 
 ing him with such contempt, and what with Miss Fanny's 
 always being so civil to him, it was quite plain, that he got 
 to hate me worse and worse, and to like that sister of mine 
 better and better every day; so, as it wasn't in my nature to 
 bear this, I took good care, whenever his Lordship called — 
 which, from what occurred afterwards, it was clear he did 
 only to see the same fascinating young lady, and not myself — 
 I was so resolved to make a conquest of him, and so become, 
 if possible, the wife of Mr. Frederick's noble master, instead 
 of the paltry Mr. Frederick himself, that I used every art I 
 could possibly think of to win his favours. But oh dear no, for 
 the more I strove to fascinate that disgusting old Lord Forti- 
 winx, the more he seemed to dislike me, and the more to ad- 
 mire the simplicity of that milk-and-water sister of mine, who 
 has scarcely a word to say for herself, and is such a downright 
 silly, that it has always been a wonder to me what on earth 
 people do see in the child. It was so horrid, too, and did 
 shock my better feelings so, to see a mere girl, with no less 
 than three suitors, all ready to eat one another for her sake, 
 and she pretending to love her sweet Mr. Brooke better than 
 all, and making believe to blush up to her eyes, whenever the 
 other two whispered their nonsense to her, and yet having 
 the impudence to declare — whenever I felt myself called upon 
 to speak to her on her shameful conduct — that she didn't 
 mean to give either Mr. Sertingley or Lord Fortiwinx any 
 encouragement. 
 
 However, if she didn't mean to do so, at least it was evi- 
 
126 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 * 
 
 dent that his Lordship thought otherwise. For, of course, 
 the conceited thing believed that his attentions were far from 
 being disagreeable, and one fine morning — for it all came out 
 so nicely afterwards — what does the double-faced old thing 
 do but call in his obsequious secretary, and make believe to 
 play the generous, in allowing ]\Ir. Sertingley to marry me — 
 marry me, indeed, as if /had nothing at all to do with it! 
 
 " My dear Frederick, I wish to have some very serious 
 conversation with you," said the polite old hypocrite. "I 
 have been thinking over your proposed connexion with the 
 family of the De Roos's, and do you know, I fancy it would 
 be much better to let you follow your own views, and to allow 
 you to marry the eldest daughter, as you first requested my 
 permission to do." 
 
 " Your Lordship is very good, I'm sure," replied Mr. Frede- 
 rick, nicely caught in his own net; " and, strange to say, I was 
 about to take the liberty of speaking to your Lordship on the 
 same subject, and to inform you, that upon weighing well 
 over all you had said to me on the matter at our first inter- 
 view, I felt there was so much truth in your observations, 
 that I at once determined not to be influenced in my choice 
 by any pecuniary considerations, and made up my mind to 
 pay my addresses to the beauteous Miss Fanny, as you so 
 generously advised me to do." 
 
 " Then you will please to make up your mind to nothing 
 of the sort, Mr. Sertingley," answered his Lordship, taken 
 aback with Frederick's excuse. " You should remember, 
 sir, that you are not in a situation to follow your inclina- 
 tions in any matrimonial alliance, and that it behoves a'man 
 of your circumstances to be regulated in the choice of a'wife 
 as much by the property as by the beauty the lady may pos- 
 sess." 
 
 " Yes, my Lord, I perfectly coincide with the truth of your 
 remark," returned the agreeable Mr. Sertingley; " but as 
 your Lordship was generous enough to say that you would 
 make up to me any difference there might be in the expecta- 
 tions of the two young ladies, I decided upon paying my ad- 
 dresses to the one who appeared to have the greater personal 
 attractions." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRTED. 127 
 
 "When I gave that permission, sir," replied his Lordship, 
 " it was because I suspected that it was because you had 
 been smitten with the very young lady, whose charms I had 
 deputed you to judge of for me. But now, as I see that 
 those suspicions were unfounded, and as I perfectly agree 
 with you that Miss Charlotte de Boos is not exactly the per- 
 son to make me happy, why, I've made up my mind to let 
 you have her, as you at first wished." 
 
 " Really, my lord," said Mr. Sertingley, bowing, and 
 rubbing his hands, " though there is no denying what you 
 say, and you are extremely good, I'm sure, still, the fact is, I 
 have so thoroughly carried out your Lordship's commands with 
 respect to Miss Fanny de Roos, that I feel myself, in a mea- 
 sure, compromised, for I am inclined to believe that my atten- 
 tions have not been altogether disagreeable to that young lady." 
 
 " Well, then, if that's the only objection you have to the 
 matter," replied his Lordship, " you needn't alarm yourself 
 about that, for I don't think that the girl cares two pins 
 about you; for, if I'm not very much mistaken," he added, 
 with a nasty, conceited smile, that showed he was talking of 
 himself, " she likes another." 
 
 " Perfectly correct, your Lordship," answered Mr. Ser- 
 tingley, of course fancying that Lord Fortiwinx was referring 
 to Mr. Brooke. " I have been given to understand that such 
 was the case; but knowing, as I do, the wide difference there 
 w r as between the station of the young lady and the party to 
 whom your Lordship alludes, I felt thoroughly convinced that 
 Miss Fanny would never make such a sacrifice of her charms 
 as that." 
 
 " Did you, sir!" returned his Lordship, taking Mr. Ser- 
 tingley's remark to himself, and rising with passion; " then 
 you will please to keep your convictions on that subject to 
 yourself, for the future, and make up your mind to marry 
 Miss Charlotte, as you at first proposed; for this chopping 
 and changing seems very disgusting to me!" 
 
 " But, your Lordship," expostulated Mr. Sertingley; " it 
 was at your own desire that I changed, and really my affec- 
 tions are ikav so entirely fixed upon Miss Fanny, that I hope 
 and trust you will have some regard for my feelings !" 
 
128 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Nonsense! Don't talk to me about your feelings and 
 affections, sir," returned his Lordship, with disgust. " If you 
 could transfer them at my bidding once, why you could do 
 so again, without much inconvenience to yourself, I'm sure. 
 So, henceforth, let me hear no more of this, I beg of you!" 
 
 On the night of the very same day, just as I was brushing 
 out my back hair previous to going to bed, who should walk 
 into my room, but Miss Fanny herself, saying that she had 
 got something to communicate, which she didn't think right 
 to keep from me. 
 
 " Oh, dear me," I said, " how moral we are getting all of 
 a sudden — and what is it, pray?" 
 
 * And, then, if she didn't tell me that that bad, bad man, 
 Mr. Sertingley, had come to her, while she was walking alone 
 in the enclosure, and having told her all that had occurred 
 that morning between himself and Lord Fortiwinx, requested 
 to know whether she really did love another, as his Lordship 
 had intimated, and that she had informed him, that she had 
 long been engaged to Mr. Brooke, and at the same time 
 asked, Mr. Sertingley, very severely, how that could in any 
 way concern him, as she had heard that he had proposed to 
 me " 
 
 " Oh! that's it, is it?" I said, putting my brush down, 
 and looking my lady full in the face, as soon as she had 
 finished her fine story, of which I didn't believe a single 
 word : " so you have managed at last to entrap my lover 
 into a declaration, have you?" 
 
 " Entrapped, Charlotte!" exclaimed Miss Fanny, with a 
 grand show of injured innocence; "this is very ungenerous 
 of you. I am sure I never gave Mr. Sertingley the least 
 encouragement." 
 
 " Of course not," I replied, setting to work quite coolly 
 at my hair again. " Of course, gentlemen are always in the 
 habit of making proposals to ladies, without having received 
 the least encouragement. Oh yes ! of course. — But, I'll tell 
 you what it is, Miss — you're a wicked, bad child, and I've 
 had my eye upon you, for a long time, and have noticed your 
 coquetting in the shameful and disgusting way you have, not 
 only with Mr. Sertingley, but with that Lord Fortiwinx, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 129 
 
 who is old enough, to be your grandfather — as you know he 
 is — and all the time leading on that poor Mr. Brooke, by 
 making him believe that you were desperately attached to 
 him. Oh, you wicked — wicked thing, you " 
 
 "Oh, Charlotte! how can you say such shocking things/' 
 replied my beauty: " why, what on earth do you think I 
 should want with either Lord Fortiwinx or Mr. Sertingley?" 
 
 " Want! why you wanted to pick and choose the best out 
 of the three, like a nasty scheming girl, as you are," I an- 
 swered, almost losing my temper. " Look at the other even- 
 ing, Miss, how you went on with Mr. Sertingley, when you 
 fancied he was taken with you, and quite discarded Mr. 
 Brooke; and I saw you again the other day, though you little 
 thought it, turning your back upon Mr. Sertingley directly 
 Lord Fortiwinx paid you the least attention. — But of course 
 you meant nothing by it, — of course you didn t want to 
 captivate a Lord, or to take my lover away from me — oh, 
 dear, no!" 
 
 " Now, Charlotte! Charlotte!" she answered, laying her 
 nasty deceitful hand on my shoulder; "only do think for a 
 moment, now; why should I want to take your lover away 
 from you, when I'm engaged to one of my own?" 
 
 " Why ? why because it would tickle your trumpery 
 vanity, to think that you had it in your power to do so. But 
 I'll take care and be even with you, my Lady; and you shall 
 see, Miss, if I don't let Mr. Brooke know every one of your 
 shameful tricks, and if I don't make him turn his back upon 
 you, my name's not Charlotte." 
 
 " No, Charlotte, I know you won't do anything of the 
 kind," she replied. 
 
 " I will — I will," I cried, with passion, striking the table 
 with my hand. "I will, you may depend upon it; and if I 
 can't do it by fair means, I'll do it by foul — only do it, I 
 will — I'll teach you, Miss, to dare to take my lover away 
 from me." 
 
 This had just the eifect I wanted upon my lady, for she 
 burst out crying, and declared, upon her honour, that I 
 wronged her, and that so far from her having done anything 
 to catch Mr. Sertingley, on the contrary, she had that very 
 
 k 
 
130 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 morning scolded him well, for having dared to come and talk 
 love to her, after he had been accepted by me. 
 
 . But I told her that I didn't and wouldn't believe a syllable 
 of her grand protestations, and to leave my room, for I didn't 
 want to exchange another word with such a character as she 
 was; and off my lady went; and I could hear her through 
 the partition which separated her bed -room from mine, sobbing 
 away so nicely, and muttering some grand stuff to herself, and 
 making up her mind to do something or other in the morn- 
 ing. This put me all agog, so that I put my ear close to the 
 wall, and listened as hard as I could, and then if I didn't hear 
 the brazen thing declare that she would be off to Lord Forti- 
 winx in the morning, and throw herself upon his protection, 
 for he had always been very kind to her; and whatever he 
 might think of it, still, anything was better than remaining 
 at home to have those things said of her; and if they ever 
 came to Mr. Brooke's ears, she should never dare to look at 
 him again. 
 
 I thought little of this at the time, of course, believing that 
 it was merely the effects of the child's passion, and that when 
 Fanny had slept upon it, she would be as meek as a lamb, and 
 come begging and praying of me to forgive her in the morn- 
 ing. However, when we were all at breakfast, Fanny was so 
 long before making her appearance, that Papa sent me up to 
 her room to see after her. 
 
 When I got to her room, she was nowhere to be found; 
 and on inquiring among the servants about her, I learnt from 
 Susan, our under-housemaid, that she had seen her go out 
 about an hour before Mamma came down to breakfast. Then, 
 recollecting all I had heard her over-night threaten to do, I 
 began to fear that she had put her rash resolves into execu- 
 tion; and, indeed, when I went back into the parlour again, I 
 was in such a dreadful state, that Papa, seeing from my 
 manner that something dreadful had happened, would make 
 me tell him all about it. When I had finished, although he 
 was as pale as death, he said there could be no truth in it. 
 But when Mamma asked me whether I had ever noticed any- 
 thing strange between Fanny and Lord Fortiwinx, and I told 
 her that I was sorry to say that I felt it to be my duty to 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 131 
 
 speak to her very severely on the subject, and that this was 
 one of the chief causes of our quarrel over-night, Papa ex- 
 claimed, with great anger, " Why didn't you speak to me, 
 child? But there is no time to be lost: I will go straight to 
 his Lordship; and even if we are wrong in our suspicions, 
 as I hope to God we are! at least, it will have the effect of 
 putting an end to all further acquaintance in that quarter." 
 
 I never saw Mamma in such a passion as she was; and she 
 did say such things of Fanny, who, at the best, was no great 
 favourite of hers, that Papa was actually obliged to tell her 
 to remember that I was present, and that he was sorry that 
 she was the first person to think her own daughter guilty, 
 even before there was any proof of her criminality. 
 
 But Mamma would have it, that what I had said was proof 
 enough for any person in their proper senses; and that, if it 
 only turned out as she expected, instead of only disgracing 
 her in my presence, she would disgrace her to the whole 
 world, she would. What was more, she would go on after 
 Papa, and take me with her; for he was always so stupid and 
 indulgent with the girl, that she verily believed, that even if 
 the facts were as plain as the sun at noon- day, he'd make out 
 the girl was innocent; and though Papa told her that it was 
 not a case fit for her, much less me, to appear in; still, she 
 said that if it was too disgraceful a business for the girl's own 
 mother to appear in it, she should like to know who could; 
 and what was more, appear in it she would; for if he didn't 
 choose to take her with him in the carriage, she would have a 
 cab, and follow after him as quick as she could. Papa said, 
 he should trust to her good sense not to do anything of the 
 kind; and leaving word with the servant, that if Mr. Brooke, 
 whom he expected on business, called, he should be asked in, 
 and requested to wait until he returned, which would not be 
 long, he jumped into the carriage and drove off. 
 
 No sooner had Mamma heard the door shut than she told 
 me to come up stairs with her, and put on my things, for fol- 
 low after she would, notwithstanding all the fine things my 
 father chose to say. 
 
 In the meantime, Fanny, who had been much hurt at my 
 suspicions of her overnight, had got up early, on purpose to go 
 
 k 2 
 
132 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 over to Lord Fortiwinx, and request him to protect her from 
 any further annoyance from his secretary, and to let him 
 know how shamefully Sertingley had treated me. When she 
 reached his Lordship's town residence, she learnt that he was 
 not yet up; but, on sending in her card, and saying that her 
 business was very urgent, his Lordship returned word that 
 he would see her directly, if she would step into the drawing- 
 room, and take a chair for a few minutes. 
 
 "When Lord Fortiwinx entered the room, it was clear that 
 he was -wondering to himself what on earth could have 
 brought Fanny to him; and after apologizing for having kept 
 her waiting, whom he always felt proud to be allowed to wait 
 upon, asked her to inform him in what way it was his good 
 fortune to be able to serve her. 
 
 " I am almost afraid to tell you, even now I am with you, 
 what brought me here/' replied Fanny, blushing, and pretend- 
 ing to be busily occupied in buttoning her glove, "for you 
 might think me wanting in delicacy for speaking on such a 
 subject to you." 
 
 " Then, pray, favour me so far as to banish all such idle 
 fears, sweet lady," said the old beau, drawing his chair close 
 to hers, and taking her hand; "for rest assured, that I could 
 never picture Miss Fanny de Roos as anything but the lovely 
 incarnation of purity itself." 
 
 " I'm sure you are very kind, my lord," replied Fanny, 
 trembling; "but the fact is, that I have come to implore that 
 you w r ould shield me from any further attention from Mr. 
 Sertingley; in fact, his addresses have been the cause of dis- 
 sensions between my sister and myself at home." 
 
 "What! has Mr. Sertingley been annoying you, beauteous 
 lady?" replied his Lordship, who actually began to fancy that 
 Fanny had come to declare her love for him, " why, it was 
 only yesterday the scoundrel told me he had reasons to believe 
 that his attentions were far from being disagreeable to you." 
 
 " And it was only yesterday, my lord," continued Fanny, 
 indignantly, "that I gave him to understand just the very 
 contrary; and, indeed, I even went so far as to confess to 
 him — that — that — to be candid — my heart, was already de- 
 voted to another." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 133 
 
 Lord Fortiwinx, who, of course, considered this other to 
 be no less a person than himself, indulged in his most self- 
 satisfied smile, and said, with a squeeze of the hand, " Ah ! 
 my dear young lady, it is then as I thought, and the thrice 
 happy fowler has caged the little dove at last;" then looking 
 in her face, the old thing said slily, " So, then, sweet innocent, 
 there is one whose darts have struck the pretty target of 
 your heart — and do I not know the fortunate archer?" 
 
 " Doubtless your Lordship is able to guess whom I mean," 
 said Fanny, blushing again deeper than before, and of course 
 fancying that the old wretch was referring to Mr. Brooke; 
 " though I fear you will think me bold in revealing as much 
 to you; but I knew that my affection could not be a secret to 
 you, for when the heart is full, my lord, the eyes will 
 speak." 
 
 " They will, sweet charmer; and the eloquence of yours 
 has not been lost upon me," returned the polite Methusaleh; 
 " each tell-tale glance has babbled of the love the lips feared 
 openly to confess." 
 
 " If I had not thought that your lordship had some sus- 
 picions of my affection," continued Fanny, still ail of a tremble, 
 " I should never have dared to beg of you to protect me from 
 the persecutions of Mr. Sertingley. I knew that I could 
 speak to you as to a father." 
 
 "Ay! or by any tenderer tie, my sweetest," replied his 
 Lordship, not over-pleased by the reference to his age. " You 
 may rest assured that I will relieve you from all annoyance 
 from that quarter." 
 
 " You cannot tell, my lord," answered Fanny, " what a 
 weight you have taken from my mind; for, to tell you the 
 truth, I have been accused — you can now understand how 
 unjustly — of encouraging his addresses, when I knew that he 
 was the accepted suitor of my sister." 
 
 " Indeed, you surprise me," replied his Lordship, with un- 
 feigned emotion for once. " I was not aware of that little 
 fact, and I promise you that it shall not pass unnoticed by 
 me." 
 
 " And knowing this, my lord," continued Fanny, '• you 
 can judge how hateful the gentleman's advances must be to 
 
134 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 me; and how, situated as I am, I each day dreaded lest a 
 similar misconstruction of my conduct in another, might have 
 the effect of separating me from one whom I would sooner 
 die than displease." 
 
 " Kind-hearted little angel," exclaimed his Lordship. " It 
 delights me to ecstasy to hear you say as much; though, for 
 myself, you need never have dreaded that I should ever have 
 been capable of judging so hastily of your innocent and in- 
 genuous nature." 
 
 " I knew you would not, your Lordship," replied Fanny, 
 " or else I should never have dared to come here as I have, 
 unknown even to my parents; but the high sense I had of 
 your honour convinced me that I might safely unburthen my 
 feelings to you." 
 
 " Believe me, dear creature," returned his Lordship, who 
 was growing more and more impassioned, " I am highly flat- 
 tered by the generous confidence you have reposed in me," 
 and then raising her hand, and kissing her glove, he added, 
 " Let tins chaste salute convince you that I am not unmindful 
 of the compliment you have paid me." 
 
 Fanny, who all this time had been taking all his flattering 
 speeches as the mere outpourings of his gallantry, no sooner 
 felt him kiss her hand, than she grew alarmed at her situa- 
 tion, and rising from her chair, told him that unless she de- 
 parted directly, she would be missed at home; and again 
 thanking him for his kindness, tried to draw her hand from 
 his. But the aged beau held it so firmly, as he kept squeezing 
 it, and looking in her face, that she grew quite frightened at 
 his manner, but the feeling of fear changed suddenly into one 
 of irrepressible laughter. It seems that Lord Fortiwinx, 
 amongst his other eccentricities, kept in his room a hideous 
 old blue parrot. This ugly bird was in the habit of perching 
 on his Lordship's shoulder, and on the back of his chair, and 
 his Lordship occasionally, when he was very affectionate, used 
 to turn round and scratch its head and play with its beak, and 
 indulge in other endearments lavished on domestic pets in 
 general, and parrots in particular. This old sky-blue parrot, 
 at the moment of Fanny's visit, was perched on the top of the 
 high-backed chair in which his Lordship was sitting. The 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 135 
 
 old beau had thrown his head slightly back, as he held Fanny's 
 hand, and drew her towards him to prevent her going. The 
 parrot had advanced his beak also, and wishing to exchange 
 morning caresses with his master, had buried it among the 
 beautiful, flowing, oily, black locks of his Lordship's hair. 
 The head of the noble house of Fortiwinx, not liking this rather 
 too penetrating style of endearment, lowered himself a little 
 in his chair to escape the power of the beak, and the conse- 
 quence was — ha, ha, ha! I cannot help laughing myself, it is 
 so very absurd, — the consequence was, that he drew it right 
 out of his wig ; and, lo ! there it was, suspended above him in 
 the parrot's beak. Fanny, alarmed as she was, could not re- 
 strain herself from tittering actually in his Lordship's face; 
 for his big bald head, which was as smooth and as shining, 
 and had no more hair on it than a billiard ball, was so ridicu- 
 lous, she said, that a Quaker even would have gone into con- 
 vulsions at the sight of it. His Lordship, however, recovered 
 his perruque and his self-possession in a moment, and fixing 
 his raven locks and his features at the same time — for they 
 had both been rather disarranged by this sudden parting 
 between his head and his hair, — he proceeded, in the most 
 hurried tones, to persuade Fanny to tarry with him a little 
 longer. He p ut his arm round her w aist, and, the poor trembling 
 girl, frightened out of her very life, forgot in a moment the 
 above ridiculous incident, and was ready to cry and scream 
 with fear. Fortiwinx pressed and persuaded with increasing 
 warmth, and Fanny was uselessly struggling to extricate her- 
 self from his embrace, when a loud double knock at the door 
 startled them both, and his Lordship, letting go his hold, 
 hurried to the window to see who was the unwelcome visitor. 
 
 < * It is your father's carriage, by all that's unlucky!" he 
 exclaimed, lifting the blind slightly on one side. 
 
 " My father's carriage!" shrieked Fanny, falling on her 
 knees, " oh, my lord, my lord! do not let him find me here 
 alone with you. Where — where — oh! where shall I go to 
 hide myself from him? He has come to seek me; I know he 
 has! and if he sees me I am ruined, ruined, ruined!" and she 
 burst into a flood of tears. 
 
 " This way," ejaculated his Lordship; " if you will only be 
 
136 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 quick, there will be no cause for alarm, my dear lady. There, 
 make haste through this door into the back drawing-room; 
 there, quick, quick, for God's sake be quick! they are coming 
 up stairs! And when you hear your father enter this apart- 
 ment, you can leave by the door you see yonder, which opens 
 on to the stairs, and leave the house without fear." 
 
 Scarcely had the old beau time to take up a book, and throw 
 himself into an attitude and an easy chair, before the servant 
 stepped in and announced " Doctor de Roos," who was follow- 
 ing close at his heels.. Papa closed the door himself, and then, 
 turning to Lord Fortiwinx, in a sharp determined tone said, 
 
 " Lord Fortiwinx, I have been given to understand that 
 my daughter Fanny is at this very moment under your roof — 
 as a gentleman, — is it the truth?" 
 
 Lord Fortiwinx, putting down his book, and raising his 
 pencilled eyebrows, feigned the greatest surprise. " Your 
 daughter, Miss Fanny, under my roof, my dear sir?" 
 
 " Will your Lordship be kind enough to favour me with a 
 direct answer to my question?" continued Papa, as firmly and 
 sharply as before. 
 
 " Really, my dear Doctor de Roos," answered the old gal- 
 lant, endeavouring to evade the question until he heard the 
 back drawing-room door close, " I do not understand you." 
 
 " My words were intelligible enough for any one to com- 
 prehend, but those who had some reason for not doing so," 
 replied Papa, beginning, from his Lordship's manner, to fancy 
 that his suspicions were too well founded; " I ask you again, 
 my lord, as a man of honour, is my child in this house? and 
 I expect from you, as a gentleman, a positive and immediate 
 answer." 
 
 Lord Fortiwinx, who supposed that by this time Fanny 
 must have left, replied, with an assumed air of injured inno- 
 cence, " As a man of honour, then, sir, your daughter is not 
 in this house; and really, this is such extraordinary conduct 
 that I can only say, that having given you this assurance, I 
 shall answer no more questions from you on the subject." 
 
 " If I am wrong," replied Papa, almost abashed, " I feel 
 convinced that Lord Fortiwinx is gentleman enough to make 
 some little allowance for my feelings in this trying position." 
 
CTZsds ^^0Vdc>USt42a> 4^2s OrtVs O^crfUt*^ 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 137 
 
 " Say no more, my dear sir," replied the old thing, bowing. 
 " But I trust nothing unpleasant has occurred? you surely 
 do not suspect anything between the young lady and my 
 secretary?" 
 
 " Your Lordship must pardon my giving you any explana- 
 tion as to the cause of my visit here," answered Papa, " further 
 than saying that I came to seek one whose character is dearer 
 to me than life." 
 
 " Oh, heaven forbid that I should wish you to disclose any 
 family secret!" answered his Lordship, with extreme polite- 
 ness. " However, my dear sir, if I can in any way aid you 
 in this unpleasant business, I shall only be most happy to do 
 your bidding." 
 
 " Thank you, my lord; and, since you are so kind, I will 
 accept your offer," said Papa, glancing at the folding doors, 
 though from his manner it was plain, that after his Lordship's 
 assurance, he wanted the heart to express any further 
 doubts; "and if you can pardon my still entertaining any 
 further suspicions, there is one way in which you can satisfy 
 my mind at once." 
 
 " Well, sir, and what may that be?" replied his cunning 
 Lordship, taking care not to promise a compliance with the 
 request, until he had heard what it was. 
 
 " To look into that room, my lord," returned Papa, glanc- 
 ing at the door through which Fanny had entered the adjoin- 
 ing room, and where he fancied she might still be secreted. 
 
 There was a twitch in the corner of his Lordship's lip, that 
 even he — master as he was over the muscles of his face — 
 could not subdue, and that told he feared — from his not hav- 
 ing heard the door close, though he had been all the while 
 anxiously listening for it — that Fanny hadn't yet had the 
 courage to leave it—" Really, Doctor de Roos," he stammered 
 out, with an air of feigned insult, " perhaps it would be more 
 satisfactory to yourself if you searched the whole house; 
 allow me to ring the bell for my housekeeper, to show you 
 through the different apartments." 
 
 " No, I thank you, my lord," replied Papa, taking him at 
 his word; " but since you are so good as to give me your per- 
 mission, I will content myself with an insight of this room." 
 
138 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 And so saying he advanced towards it, while his Lordship 
 seated himself in his chair, and awaited the issue of the ex- 
 amination with no little trepidation. 
 
 In a minute Papa returned; and as he re-entered the 
 apartment, he said, with a bow, " My lord, I have to apolo- 
 gize to you sincerely for my unjust suspicions of you; I am 
 now thoroughly satisfied that I have wronged you, and 
 wronged you deeply, and am too happy to make you this 
 slight atonement for this outrage on your privacy, and to ask 
 your pardon for any offence I may have given." 
 
 " I will frankly confess that you have wounded me, 
 Doctor de Roos, and wounded me very keenly too," rejoined 
 the beau, delighted at Fanny's escape, and yet wishing to 
 appear seriously hurt at Papa's conduct; "but the noble way 
 in which you have acknowledged your error has made ample 
 amends for the injury, and in token of my forgiveness, I ten- 
 der you this hand." 
 
 Papa was advancing to take it, when Mamma and I rushed 
 into the room, dragging the abashed Fanny in between us, 
 whom we had discovered stealing from the house, while we 
 were waiting in a cab at the door, and debating whether, after 
 what Papa had said, we should venture up stairs or not. 
 
 "Thank God!" exclaimed Papa, fancying we had come 
 from home with Fanny, to put an end to his doubts, " then 
 my child returned shortly after I left home?" 
 
 "Returned, indeed!" said Mamma, boiling over with pas- 
 sion. " I found this young lady creeping, like a guilty crea- 
 ture as she is, from the door of his Lordship's house here." 
 
 Papa positively looked awful, as, scarlet in the face with 
 indignation, he turned round to Lord Fortiwinx, and knitting 
 his brows, while he drew himself up, he looked at the old beau 
 — who seemed to have lost all his self possession — full in face, 
 and said, " There are two terms, Lord Fortiwinx, that I can 
 apply to you, and they are — villain and liar!" and then push- 
 ing Mamma from the room before she had time to say another 
 word, he seized Fanny, just as she was about to faint, in his 
 arms, and rushing down stairs, jumped with her into the 
 carriage, leaving us to follow him in the cab as quickly as we 
 could. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 139 
 
 When we reached home, we found Papa in the library 
 with Fanny, bending and weeping over her, and begging of 
 her to tell him all; while she, pale and motionless as a statue, 
 sat half stupified in her chair, only occasionally muttering to 
 herself, " The God above me knows I am innocent!" 
 
 Mamma, though half frightened at Fanny's ghastly appear- 
 ance, ran up to her, and shaking her head in her face, said, 
 " Oh, you deceitful, good-for-nothing, bad child ! and so this 
 is the end that your pretended simplicity has led to, is it? 
 But you shall not live under the same roof with me; go where 
 you will, it's no matter to me now, — only I'll take care you 
 shall not stay in this house, to contaminate your poor dear, 
 good sister here, with your wicked ways!" 
 
 "Leave her to me," said Papa, interfering; "this is not 
 the way to rouse the poor girl to a sense of her conduct. If 
 she be guilty, severity will only harden her; whereas kind- 
 ness and proper care may yet save her from the doom that 
 you, woman like, would only hurry her to." 
 
 " Kindness, indeed!" cried Mamma, more angry than ever; 
 " she shall have no kindness from me, I can promise her; 
 and all I can tell you, sir, is, that either she or I leave this 
 house, — I'm not going to harbour any such creatures 
 here!" 
 
 " And so, in your horror of her acts," he replied, meekly, 
 yet sternly, " you would cast her from you, and force her to 
 even greater imprudence still. The good can help themselves, 
 but it is the erring daughter that most needs the mother's 
 guidance; and yet that mother would be the first to fling the 
 poor frail thing from her to infamy, when, by her counsel and 
 care, she might yet be won back to virtue and happiness. 
 Madam, I blush for you !" 
 
 " Oh, yes, certainly," replied Mamma, somewhat calmed, 
 " I agree with you, — she has done perfectly right, and ought 
 to be rewarded, instead of punished for her wickedness. But 
 Mr. Brooke is in the next room, and we'll see what his opinion 
 is of the young lady's conduct!" — and she rushed out of the 
 room; while Fanny, who seemed brought back to life by the 
 mention of his name, exclaimed, " Do with me as you please, 
 but, for Heaven's sake, spare me that /" 
 
HO WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 When Mamma returned with Mr. Brooke, she told him all 
 that had occurred, notwithstanding Papa's continuous attempts 
 to interrupt her; and when she had finished, she asked Mr. 
 Brooke what he thought of Miss Fanny. 
 
 '• Really, Mrs. De Roos, this is so much a family matter, 
 that you must excuse my declining to offer any opinion on 
 the subject," replied Mr. Brooke, apparently much hurt at 
 poor Fanny's awful appearance, as she sat there with her 
 hands before her face. 
 
 " Of course," continued Mamma, " you'll give her up, as 
 she deserves? — come, I am glad to find that you, at least, 
 don't think it worth your while to trouble your head any 
 further about her." 
 
 " Pardon me, Madam," he answered, as if disgusted with 
 Mamma, " I meant to imply nothing of the kind. After I 
 have heard from the young lady herself some explanation of 
 the affair, I shall be better able to offer you my opinion." 
 
 Fanny no sooner heard this than, as if suddenly awakened, 
 she dropt her hands, and bursting into tears, sobbed out — 
 " Bless you, Alfred! — bless you!" while Papa, taking him by 
 the hand, said, with a tear in the corner of his eye, " I thank 
 you much, Mr. Brooke, for your consideration in this awk- 
 ward, though, I hope, harmless business." 
 
 Here we were all much alarmed by a loud and continuous 
 knocking at the door, and, directly afterwards, the man- 
 servant handed in the cards of Lord Fortiwinx and Mr. 
 Sertingley, who were in the dining-room, and wished to 
 speak with Doctor de Roos directly. 
 
 Mamma beckoned me to follow, and we all entered. 
 
 " I do an act of justice to your daughter, Dr. de Roos," 
 began Lord Fortiwinx. " I come here at the risk of any 
 further insult you may please to cast at me." 
 
 " Yes, my Lord," answered Papa; " pray proceed. " You 
 have come here to do an act of justice to my child?" 
 
 " I have, Sir," continued his Lordship; " for on talking 
 with Mr. Sertingley, I find that what I foolishly fancied to 
 have been a declaration of love from Miss Fanny, and which 
 I — imagining to have been the cause of her visit this morn- 
 ing — felt some hesitation in confessing that visit to you,- — I 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 141 
 
 say, I find, from some conversation I have had with Mr. 
 
 Sertingley, that her visit had reference to Mr. Brooke, rather 
 
 than myself." 
 
 " But still, my lord, the real cause of that visit remains to 
 
 be explained," said Papa. 
 
 " That, she gave me to understand,"his Lordship continued, 
 
 arose from a desire to be freed from the addresses of Mr. 
 
 Sertingley, who, it appears, had proposed and been accepted 
 
 by her sister, Miss Charlotte!" 
 
 Papa smiled with delight, and looked at Mamma, as much 
 
 as to say, " You see how you have wronged poor Fanny," 
 
 while I sat, all impatience to hear how Mr. Sertingley would 
 
 explain away his dishonourable conduct to myself. 
 
 " I am much obliged to you, Lord Fortiwinx," said Papa, 
 
 " for this generous confession; and I can only regret, that in 
 
 the heat of our mutual error, I should have applied to you 
 
 terms which I now blush for, and hope you will allow me to 
 
 retract." 
 
 Lord Fortiwinx bowed his acceptance of the apology. 
 Then Papa, turning to Mr. Sertingley, said — " If, Sir, 
 
 you were the accepted suitor of my daughter — though the 
 
 fact is new to me — how came you, may I ask, to transfer the 
 affection you had plighted from one to the other?" 
 
 " I feel, Dr. de Eoos," answered the extremely polite 
 gentleman, much " embarrassed at having to answer your ques- 
 tion in the presence of the lady herself, and you must pardon 
 me for any harsh truths I may feel it necessary, for my ex- 
 culpation, to use before her. That I loved her at one time, my 
 acts were the best proof, for it was for her sake that I risked 
 the favour of his Lordship. But when, on confessing to her 
 how I had deceived my lord — because I knew, that from the 
 account he had received from Mrs. de Roos, he was anxious 
 to gain the love of the lady herself — I found her manner 
 change entirely towards me; and, moreover, when I noticed 
 how, on her first introduction to Lord Fortiwinx, she used, 
 before my very eyes, every artifice she could to ensnare and 
 fascinate the noble prize, I must confess I felt my feelings 
 change immediately towards her And further, when I con- 
 trasted her scheming tricks with the beautiful simplicity and 
 
142 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 artlessness of her sister Fanny, was it to be wondered at that 
 I should feel as great a growing detestation for the one as I 
 did love for the other?" 
 
 I could contain myself no longer, and was about to tell 
 Papa how Mr. Sertingley had flirted with Fanny on the 
 evening referred to, when Papa, observing me about to 
 speak, motioned me to be silent, saying that he would hear 
 my explanation by-and-by. Then turning to Mr. Sertingley, 
 he said, " And did Miss Fanny, may I ask, give any encou- 
 ragement to your addresses." 
 
 " I must do that young lady the justice to say, that I am 
 now convinced that she never did. I certainly at one time 
 did construe her affability into a dawning of affection; but 
 when I questioned her on the subject, she told me that she 
 was wedded, heart and soul, to Mr. Brooke; adding, I must 
 confess, in truth to the young lady, that even if she were 
 not, she never could think of countenancing the inconstancy 
 of the accepted suitor of her sister." 
 
 "And in consequence of this," interrupted Lord Forti- 
 winx, "it seems the young lady came to me this morning; 
 and, perhaps, it may be a lesson to Miss Charlotte for the 
 future, and somewhat of a corroboration to Mr. Sertingley's 
 account of his conduct, if you will allow me also to inform 
 you, that, fascinated with the description report had given 
 me of the charms of your eldest daughter, I came to town 
 wholly and solely to make honourable proposals to her, if 
 I found her disposition was equally admirable. But I regret 
 to say, that where I expected modesty, I found heartless co- 
 quetry; where I hoped to meet with coy simplicity, I found 
 only dishonourable trickery. A lady courting where she 
 should be courted, and seeking to win rather than waiting 
 to be won; and, moreover, scheming, where scheming is most 
 loathsome of all; and seeking to ensnare a husband by her 
 arts, rather than win one by her virtue. Need I tell you, 
 that all this produced such a revulsion in me, that I, too, 
 could not help comparing her with her sister, and admiring 
 Miss Fanny for the very qualities in which I found Miss 
 Charlotte deficient. Before , quitting, Dr. De Roos, it may 
 afford you some satisfaction to learn that the young lady, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 143 
 
 whose honour you so unjustly suspected this morning, came 
 to me at the risk of her own reputation to befriend her sister, 
 by begging of me to induce Mr. Sertingley either to carry out 
 his proposal to her sister, or else to discontinue his addresses 
 to her, as they were the cause of much uneasiness to Miss 
 Charlotte." 
 
 Then both Lord Fortiwinx and Mr. Sertingley rose, and 
 having bowed very formally to us all, took their departure. 
 
 Papa went into the study, and, bursting into tears, threw 
 himself upon Fanny's neck, asking her pardon for his dreadful 
 suspicions of her, and calling her " his own dear injured girl;" 
 and taking Mr. Brooke by the hand, " I am happy to inform 
 you, my dear Sir, that so far from her not being worthy of 
 you, indeed there is not the man living who is worthy of 
 her." 
 
 Then taking my hand, he led me up stairs alone with him 
 into the drawing-room. 
 
 " Charlotte," he said, gently, yet sternly, as he always did, 
 " can you imagine what have been my feelings this day, to 
 find one of my children so noble, and the other so base, both 
 in the same breath? How can you expect to be happy when 
 you find that your conduct wins only indignation, though 
 affection be the stake you play for? How much longer will 
 you require to live in the world before you find out that this 
 very admiration you hunt after from day to day, as you do, 
 is so slippery a prize, that in your struggle to gain it, you are 
 sure to over-reach yourself, and falling backwards, meet only 
 with contempt instead?" 
 
 I endeavoured to explain to Papa how Mr. Sertingley's 
 conduct with Fanny had excited my jealousy, and that this 
 had been the sole cause of my behaviour to Lord Forti- 
 winx. 
 
 Of course, he would have it that this in no way justified 
 my conduct. If I had thought Mr. Sertingley untrue to me, 
 I should have known that he was unworthy of me; and not, 
 because he was dishonourable, have stooped to follow him, 
 especially when such dishonourable acts were tenfold more 
 base in a woman, who, in casting off her truth and con- 
 stancy, casts off her woman's nature also. 
 
144 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " But I am sure, Papa," I argued, " I meant nothing of 
 the kind by it. I was piqued at Mr. Sertingley's flirtation 
 with Fanny, and only wanted to make him believe that I was 
 taken with Lord Fortiwinx, just to make him as jealous as he 
 had made me." 
 
 " And so to purchase this slight revenge," he answered, 
 " you wouldn't hesitate to give, as the price for it, your own 
 modesty. And see what a beggar it has left you. Here you 
 have had an old man — yes, old enough to be your father's 
 father — so indignant at your wanton artifices, that even he, 
 to your very face, tells you that, finding himself courted be- 
 fore he had even begun to court, he turned from you with 
 disgust, loathing the very woman he had wished to love! 
 Isn't this the very end I prophesied awaited you? And what 
 was the security you offered me, that it should not be so? 
 Did you not tell me to believe in your honour — believe in 
 your virtue? Indeed, my poor, poor child, if you do not 
 hoard up well what little of the treasure you may still possess, 
 you will soon be bankrupt in both." 
 
 "Father! father! do not say so!" I said, hiding my face. 
 
 " Indeed, Charlotte, I would that I could say otherwise. 
 But there is a storm hanging over you, and if it only burst 
 on your wretched head, God help you, my poor one"! 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 145 
 
 OFFER THE SEVENTH. 
 
 THIS WAS AS LUCKY AN ESCAPE AS A POOR CONFIDING GIRL EVER 
 HAD. IF I HAD ONLY MARRIED THE HANDSOME DECEITFUL 
 MONSTER, I DO VERILY BELIEVE I SHOULD HAVE BEEN REDUCED 
 TO THE DISGRACEFUL STATE OF HAVING TO DARN MY OWN CLOTHES, 
 OR, WHAT IS MUCH WORSE, HAVING TO NURSE AND TAKE CARE 
 OF MY OWN CHILDREN. BUT, THANK GOODNESS, I FOUND OUT 
 "WHAT A MERE BEGGAR MY GRAND GENTLEMAN OF PROPERTY AND 
 LANDED ESTATES WAS, BEFORE I FELL A VICTIM TO HIS FINE 
 SPEECHES, AND WICKED GOOD-FOR-NOTHING STORIES. THOUGH I 
 DO LIKE TO HAVE A KIND WORD FOR EVERYBODY, STILL I MUST 
 SAY, THAT MY THEN FUTURE HUSBAND, — WHO UP TO THE ELEVENTH 
 HOUR I THOUGHT AN ANGEL DROPPED FROM THE SKIES, AND 
 WELL ENOUGH TO DO IN THIS WICKED WORLD, — WAS THE BASEST 
 AND VILEST OF DOUBLE-FACED MONSTERS, AND, TO CROWN IT ALL, 
 WITHOUT A PENNY TO BLESS HIMSELF WITH. 
 
 After Papa had done lecturing me, I ran up stairs to my 
 own room, and locking the door, sat down before my looking- 
 glass, and had a good cry, till my eyes were as red and swollen 
 and puffy as tomatos, and I then made a vow that I would 
 go on differently for the future. " Oh," I said to myself, as 
 I bathed my poor eyelids, for they made me look a per- 
 fect fright, " Oh, I wish to goodness gracious I had been 
 blessed with an ugly face, and then I should have been sure 
 to have been a pattern of virtue, and people would have said, 
 what a dear good plain young woman I was, and all would 
 agree what an excellent wife I should make, if any gentle- 
 man could but bring himself to take a fancy to me. Then, 
 of course, I should have been one of those sweet frights, 
 whom to know was to love, but whose looks are unfortunately 
 so much against them, that nobody will take the trouble to 
 know them." 
 
146 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 So I went on convincing myself — while I was pearl-pow- 
 dering my face — how happy I should have been if I had only 
 had the good fortune to have been born positively bad-look- 
 ing. Upon my word, I got to such a state of disgust with 
 myself, that actually whilst I was improving the arch of my 
 eyebrows with my tweezers, I was wicked enough to wish 
 that bountiful Providence had only vouchsafed unto me a 
 cast in the eye ; and instead of cursing me w r ith a classic 
 Grecian nose, that could only lead me into evil, had blessed 
 me with a highly moral snub, that would have pointed the 
 way to Heaven. But when I, in the impulse of the moment, 
 put my finger to the end of my Grecian, and lifted it into 
 the wished-for snub, and squinted at myself in the glass, 
 O-o-o-oh! dear! dear! dear me! what a horrid, repulsive, 
 pure-minded thing I did look. But it certainly had the 
 effect of teaching me to be more resigned to my personal 
 attractions, for I felt satisfied that it had all been done for 
 the best. 
 
 But it was quite useless my vowing a pack of vows, and 
 promising myself to be such an innocent angel for the future; 
 for, of course, just as I had made up my mind to be as prim 
 as a Quakeress, Papa and Mamma must needs go settling the 
 day for Fanny's wedding with her trumpery Mr. Brooke. 
 This was more than my flesh and blood could bear; for the 
 idea of my younger sister getting married before me, did put 
 me in such a way, that I determined to wear my back hair 
 in ringlets again, and strain every nerve to get the start of 
 my lady, even if I had to give a long flourishing account of 
 myself in the Sunday Times, and ask some of its readers to 
 have me. But this I knew, that if my fine stuck-up Miss 
 Fanny was in such a hurry to get " settled," that she must 
 needs go and get married before her elder sister, she was 
 quite mistaken in me if she for one moment fancied that I 
 was going to be present at the wedding, or even at the 
 breakfast. No ! that I wasn't, even though I was obliged to 
 be suddenly seized with the influenza — I wasn't. 
 
 At last, one day, a beautiful idea struck me. I was turn- 
 ing over the leaves of our volume of the Byron Beauties, 
 when that silly Mamma would have it that I was the very 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 147 
 
 image of that beautiful Haidee. And upon my word, when 
 I looked at the picture again, I did see some little resem- 
 blance, and couldn't help allowing that Haidee had got my 
 eyes, though, as I said at the time, her mouth would have 
 made two of mine. Just to return the compliment, I told 
 Mamma that if it wasn't for her Roman nose, she would 
 be the very image of the Maid of Athens; and I declare if she 
 didn't simper away as if she thought I meant it, and five 
 minutes afterwards said, " That if ever it pleased Providence 
 to send her an invitation to a fancy dress ball, she should 
 make a point of going in that character." No sooner had 
 she said the words, than I told her that it would be very nice 
 and quite distingue, if we made our next evening party a 
 fancy dress one; and at last I said so many fine things to her, 
 that she perfectly agreed with me, adding, "she didn't see 
 how on earth Papa could object to it, as it wouldn't be any 
 more expense than a mere quadrille party." 
 
 In order to make Mamma as determined to have the fancy 
 ball as I was, I kept running over all the different costumes 
 that I thought she would look well in. Now I was pointing 
 out to her how wonderfully well she would look as Mary 
 Queen of Scots; and how nice her old black velvet body 
 would cut up into that darling little pet of a " bonnet" her 
 Majesty always wore; and how her lovely imitation pearls, 
 that she had bought in Paris for her back hair, would do ad- 
 mirably for the trimming. But, no; she wouldn't listen to 
 it, saying there would be certain to be at least a dozen Queen 
 Marys. So then I gave her a glowing description of herself 
 in the costume of a Sultana, telling her how our old India 
 muslin drawing-room curtains would make up into a lovely 
 pair of Turkish trousers, and she knew that nothing became 
 her so much as a turban, and it would be so easy to have one of 
 Papa's old paste shoe-buckles, that he never used now, made 
 into a little half- moon, to fix her duck of a bird of paradise 
 in with. But Mamma had set her heart upon making her 
 appearance as the Maid of Athens, and all I could say was 
 thrown away, for she would have it that the ringlets she had 
 got up stairs in her drawer, would look magnificent at the 
 back of her head, and my Albanian scarf was just the thing 
 
 l 2 
 
148 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 to go round her waist. So as I saw she had fixed her heart 
 upon that character, I agreed with her; for I was 1 afraid she 
 might grow angry at my opposition, and say she would have 
 no fancy dress ball at all. 
 
 To change the subject, I began talking about what costume 
 would suit Fanny, and told Mamma that as that young lady 
 was going to be married, I thought it would be very impro- 
 per if she was allowed to dress herself out very grand, and 
 that the prettiest and simplest thing would be either a Flower- 
 girl or a Shepherdess, and then there would be little or no 
 expense, for all she would want would be a few yards of sarce- 
 net ribbon, as her book muslin would do very nicely, I was 
 sure. Besides, then she wouldn't want her bracelet and gold 
 chain, and could lend them to me for Haidee. 
 
 "Well, after a great deal of coaxing, and Mamma's being 
 obliged to have another nasty attack of low spirits, Papa gave 
 us his consent to have the ball, but the cheque he presented 
 Mamma with to pay for the supper and refreshments was so 
 small, that we saw we should be obliged to make all the cus- 
 tards and jellies at home. We set to work immediately, writing 
 out the list of the friends we should invite, taking very good 
 care to send only to those to whose parties we had been; for, as 
 Mamma said, Hospitality was one thing, but feasting a pack 
 of people who never asked you even to so much as a mere 
 trumpery the dansante, was another. She must confess she did 
 like some return for what she gave, and it was all very pretty 
 to tell your guests, in a grand after-dinner speech, that it was 
 your greatest delight to be surrounded by your friends; but 
 the long and short of it was, friendship had nothing to do with 
 it, for it was now very well understood in polite society that 
 when you gave a friend a dinner, you expected as good a 
 dinner back from him. If this was not the case, why, she 
 would ask me, didn't people in the best circles go giving 
 grand dinners to those who wanted them? No, indeed, they 
 were not such ninnies as that. Everybody, with the least pre- 
 tensions to good breeding, very well knew that your dinner 
 and evening parties had grown into a very pleasing and con- 
 venient system of fashionable commerce. It is just the same 
 thing, she told me, that Papa said about his rubbishing Poli- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 149 
 
 tical Economy — you buy your suppers or your dinners in the 
 cheapest market, and of course you sell them again in that 
 market where you think you are likely to make the most by 
 them. Did I, now, for one moment imagine that she was 
 going to the expense of a grand fancy dress-ball just to make 
 her friends happy, and allow them to wear a pack of fine 
 clothes? No! she begged of me to understand — for she made 
 no secret of it — that she did it with the view of getting me 
 comfortably settled in life. And she looked upon the elegant 
 supper J <ie intended to provide as a very eligible investment 
 of capital, which, some day or other, ought to yield a very 
 large return. Nor was she — she continued — at all singular 
 in this opinion, for every person of any refinement looked 
 upon it in the same light, and, indeed, understood that when 
 the pleasure of their company was requested to quadrilles 
 by any lady of " ton," that it was merely a genteel announce- 
 ment that the young ladies of the establishment were ready 
 to be disposed of to the highest matrimonial bidder, and the 
 invitation to the " danse" was always considered merely as 
 a " card to view." 
 
 So we sent out the notes to all the best of our acquaintance, 
 and as we gave plenty of notice, we had not above a dozen 
 refusals, and on the night in question the rooms were so 
 beautifully full, that I declare no one could move about with 
 any comfort; and although people were nearly fainting with 
 the heat, still they all agreed they had never passed such a 
 pleasant evening before in the whole course of their lives. 
 Oh, it was so beautiful! Everybody did look so grand, and 
 so stiff, and so unlike themselves, and seemed to be quite de- 
 lighted at the opportunity of strutting about in other people's 
 clothes. If there was one King I'm sure there were a dozen, 
 and at least nine of them were Henrys the Eight, though 
 what on earth can make the most disgusting of all Monarchs 
 the most popular at fancy dress balls I never could make out; 
 but it was very lucky they did come, for, upon my word, there 
 was such a crowd of Anne Boleyns, Jane Seymours, and 
 Catherines of Arragon, that there were quite wives enough 
 present to have allowed each of the royal Harrys to have 
 had their proper quantity. The worst of it was, there was 
 
150 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 so many Field Marshals and general officers, that one would 
 have fancied it was the eve of the battle of Waterloo, as you 
 saw them dancing away on our Brussels. But what amused 
 me the most was, that nothing but the extremes would please 
 the Masqueraders. If they could not come in all the grandeur 
 of Mary Queen of Scots, they were safe to make their ap- 
 pearance in all the cheap innocence of Flower or Orang-egirls. 
 If they weren't Lady Jane Greys, they were sure to be 
 Milk-maids; if they couldn't afford to be Joans of Arc, they 
 would be certain to dwindle down into the clean economy of 
 Charity children, so that really your party seemed to be the 
 most curious mixture of the very highest and the very lowest 
 in the land. Anybody to have seen the motley group, would 
 have declared that Madame Tussaud's shilling exhibition had 
 been transported into our drawing-room, for every one seemed 
 to be so stiff and so extremely stupid, that really they seemed 
 to be nothing more than a congregation of fine clothes and 
 wax-work. 
 
 Mamma made her appearance as the Maid of Athens, as she 
 had threatened. Of course, all her friends went into rap- 
 tures, and declared that it was by far the best dress of the 
 evening; but directly her back was turned, I could see by 
 their titters that they were laughing at her for a great big 
 silly, and pulling her to pieces, and I even heard a nasty 
 vulgar French Republican say to Thomas a Becket, while 
 drawing attention to poor Mamma's hook nose, that the dress 
 might belong to the Maid of Athens, but the nose most un- 
 questionably belonged to the Maid of Judah. 
 
 But though all the company were first flattering and then 
 laughing at Mamma, still there was one Irish gentleman — in a 
 wig and gown — who had been brought by Mr. Notter Brown, 
 the M.P. for Tipperary, and who would keep following 
 Mamma about the room, calling her his u Zoe, mou," and ask- 
 ing her "to give, och! give him back his harrut!" and vow- 
 ing he would bring an action, and lay the damages at the 
 amount of bullion there w r as in the " counthry, as that was 
 the greatest legal tinder that could be made anyhow." And 
 so he went on, until I declare if that stupid Mamma didn't 
 tell me that he was one of the most perfect gentlemen she 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 151 
 
 had met with for a long time, and asked me whether I knew 
 who he was. 
 
 On inquiring of Mr. Notter Brown who and what his 
 friend was, we learnt that he was a barrister-at-law, and a 
 Trinity College man, of the name of Maurice O' Saveloy, and 
 that he belonged to one of the oldest families in Ireland, and 
 was descended from one of the Irish Kings. This quite 
 turned poor Mamma's head, and having dragged the Trinity 
 College man from the refreshment-room, she introduced the 
 descendant of the Irish King to me for the next quadrille. 
 All I could gather from him was, that he was immensely rich, 
 and possessed of great estates in " county Corruk," and that 
 his friend, the Lord Lieutinant, had advised him to go to the 
 bar, on account of his great rhetor-r-rical powers. He next 
 informed me, that though he was one of the most beloved of 
 Irish landlords, he had thought it prudent, in the prisint 
 ixcitid state of his counthry, to lave the brave boys, list 
 any of thim should be wishing to be afther having his life. 
 
 I never knew such a gentleman for compliments as he 
 was. But of course I wasn't such a silly as to believe all he 
 said, like that stupid Mamma; so that when he declared that 
 my black eyes were in mourning for the number of deaths 
 they had caused, I told him to go along with him, and 
 begged him to understand that his flattery really distressed 
 me; then, if the impudent thing hadn't the audacity to call the 
 dimples in my cheek " whirrulpools" of love. But I soon let 
 him know that if he went on with any more of that non- 
 sense he really would offend me, as he must take me for a 
 downright simpleton, to fancy that I should believe even half 
 of what he said. 
 
 After all the ladies had left the supper-table, we were 
 greatly shocked at hearing the gentlemen down stairs hurra- 
 ing away as if they were at a Temperance Meeting. When 
 Papa came up, we learnt that Mr. Maurice 0' Saveloy had, in 
 a very flowery speech, been kind enough to propose the health 
 of " the lovely and amiable hostess, and her beautiful and ac- 
 complished daughter." And he had so expatiated upon the 
 virtues and graces of the whole family, that any one to 
 have heard the gentleman would have fancied he was one of 
 
152 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 our most intimate acquaintances, though — as Papa said — he 
 never recollected to have ever seen him before. And upon 
 my word, continued Papa, " he was such an enthusiastic ad- 
 mirer of the family, that he would insist upon every gentle- 
 man present drinking the health in tumblers full of my very 
 best champagne." 
 
 On his inquiring of Mamma who the Irish gentleman was, 
 Ma said all she knew was, that he had been introduced by 
 Mr. Notter Brown, and evidently had the manners and air 
 of a perfect gentleman. 
 
 After this, Mr. 0' Saveloy got so persevering in his visits 
 to the house, and so marked in his attentions to me, that 
 Papa, who had always been suspicious of him, determined — 
 notwithstanding all Mamma could say to the contrary — upon 
 asking him what his intentions were. 
 
 To tell the plain truth, I wasn't at all sorry for this, for nei- 
 ther Mamma nor myself could make Mr. 0' Saveloy out. That 
 he was a gentleman of extensive property there could not be 
 the slightest doubt; for if he gave me one present, I'm sure he 
 must have given me a whole drawer-full, and all of the most 
 expensive articles. Scarcely a week went over our head but 
 what he sent some beautiful piece of amiable extravagance up 
 to the house for me. Bouquet after bouquet, too, used to be 
 left for me, all of them of the choicest flowers, in the depth of 
 winter. Still with all this, there was one thing that struck us 
 both as being remarkably strange. We never saw him, but 
 he always wore the same blue surtout with velvet collar and 
 facings. If he dined with us — which he generally did three 
 times a week when term time was over — it was still in the 
 same blue surtout. If Mamma had a box at the Theatre, and 
 he accompanied us there, it was still in that invariable blue 
 surtout. The most wonderful thing was, too, that though he 
 had no aversion to theatrical performances, still we never could 
 prevail upon him to escort us to the Opera. Once he invited 
 Mamma and myself to see the Courts of Law in Lincolns' Inn, 
 and as he was accompanying us, in his wig and gown, down to 
 the Rolls' Court, whom should we meet but his friend, Mr. Albert 
 Sox, whom we had so often heard him speak of as being pos- 
 sessed of large plantations in Jamaica, and as occupying half 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 153 
 
 of his Chambers, in Staples -Inn. As Mr. Sox approached us 
 Mamma nudged my arm, and on looking at the gentleman, I 
 declare if he had not got on a blue surtout with a velvet collar 
 and facings, cut exactly the same as the one that we had so 
 often noticed on Mr. O'Saveloy, and the very first words that 
 Mamma and I said, when we were alone in the carriage again, 
 were, " Did you see that surtout?" But, however, on turning 
 the matter over, we both agreed that it was very natural for two 
 such bosom friends to dress alike. Besides it was ridiculous to 
 imagine that two gentlemen of such immense property as 
 Messrs. O'Saveloy and Sox should wear each other's clothes. 
 
 When Papa spoke to Mr. O'Saveloy about the nature of his 
 intentions tawards me, dear Maurice did say such a pack of fine 
 things about me, and declared that he was dying in love for me, 
 and that the only thing to save him was my hand. On this 
 Papa, of course, inquired more particularly into his circum 
 stances, when if the generous dear didn't say that for every 
 thousand Papa settled upon me he would settle ten, though 
 he should not like to go much beyond a hundred thousand, 
 as he thought that would be quite pin-money enough for me, 
 and he gave Papa such a flaming account of his castle in 
 this county, and his shares in that company, and his money 
 in all kinds of securities, that Papa said, that if I was a con- 
 senting party, he could have no objection. 
 
 And as I could not be otherwise than a consenting party 
 with such a dear attentive rogue as he had always been to 
 me, especially after the handsome settlement he proposed 
 making upon me, why the day was fixed; and to my great 
 joy, Miss Fanny's wedding with the trumpery Mr. Brooke 
 was put off for more than a month, so that we might both be 
 married on the same day, and, as JMamma said, then the dash 
 of the equipages of the noblemen that Mr. O'Saveloy said 
 had insisted upon being present at his weddiug would give 
 something like a style to the nuptial glass-coach of that 
 Fanny's trumpery Mr. Brooke, whom, to tell the truth, she 
 never was particularly fond of having for a son-in law, and 
 did not see the use of putting herself to the expense of another 
 breakfast expressly on his account. 
 
154 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 And now that I have shown my readers the bright side of 
 that pretty Mr. O' Saveloy, and let them know what an ad- 
 mirable match I thought he would have been for me — indeed, 
 to tell the truth, we seemed at first to have been made ex- 
 pressly for each other — let me now, show them the reverse 
 of the portrait, and then I will ask them whether the three 
 months' violent fever, and the entire loss of my beautiful 
 thick head of hair, was not just what might have been ex- 
 pected under the distressing circumstances ? After the 
 match was once broken off, every day kept bringing fresh 
 discoveries about the handsome villain. And on putting 
 this and that together, oh ! dear, dear, poor me ! what a mercy 
 it was that I escaped from the clutches of the fortune-hunter! 
 Upon my word I should have liked to have had the fellow in- 
 dicted for matrimonial swindling, or endeavouring to obtain 
 my heart under false pretences. 
 
 Man of property! — an owner of large estates in the county 
 of " Corruk," indeed! — pretty estates, to be sure! when the 
 only property he possessed in " Corruk," were the soles of 
 the boots, which we afterwards saw in the Times, he was 
 summoned for. The following are the plain unvarnished 
 facts, reader; but first let me give a description of the deceiv- 
 ing wretch, lest he should treat any poor confiding girl in 
 the same heartless way he did me; and I have heard, on the 
 very best authority, that he is still to be seen prowling about 
 the West End, like a raging fortune hunter, seeing what 
 poor heiress he can devour. 
 
 He stands upwards of six feet high, and is very broad 
 shouldered, and has a highly-commanding figure, being very 
 muscular and powerful, and, indeed, a remarkably fine, large, 
 wiry, well-built man. His cheek bones are high, his nose 
 small, his whiskers full and sandy, his mouth large, and his 
 eyes impudent. He is usually, or rather always, dressed 
 in a blue surtout, with velvet collar and facings, and is re- 
 markable for the whiteness of his shirt fronts, and the flatness 
 as well as the size of his feet. 
 
 This gentleman — if I may be allowed so strong an ex- 
 pression — resided in Staples- Inn, where he had what he 
 called Chambers, but what I call a legal second floor back. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 
 
 155 
 
 These apartments lie held in common with Mr. Albert Sox, a 
 young gentleman who was qualifying himself for the bar, by 
 taking his dinners, during term time, at a legal ordinary, and, 
 to do him justice, was eating his way to the woolsack as fast 
 as he could. 
 
 As for the Chambers, or legal garret — as I wittily called 
 it a few lines back — oh, it was the most wretched hovel! 
 What with the darkness and the dirtiness of the place, I declare, 
 it was as black as poor dear Mamma's front hair. On each 
 side of where the street door ought to have been, there were 
 no less than eight long streaks of clean and dirty white paint, 
 on which were written the names of the twelve tenants. I 
 couldn't help pointing out to Mamma, as we entered, how it 
 was very easy to tell, from the whiteness or grubbiness of the 
 streak, how long each party had resided under the dingy 
 roof. But I found out afterwards that those cunning, 
 scheming, Messrs. O'Saveloy and Sox, had had their names 
 painted on a dirty ground, on purpose to give an air of anti- 
 quity to the term of their residence; or, in other words, to 
 make people believe they were the oldest inhabitants of the 
 place. As you groped your way up the nasty staircase, 
 (positively the walls were as moist as the windows of a cook- 
 shop,) you expected that every person you met would be as 
 white as the shoots of a potato vegetating in a coal cellar. 
 
 When you did reach the summit of this Mont Noir, ten 
 chances to one but what you saw wafered up on the great big 
 black door, a slip of paper, on which was written and flou- 
 rished in a legal hand, 
 
 at Court. 
 
 Back at 4. 
 
 But from the frightful smell of tobacco smoke that kept 
 issuing through the opening in the door for letters, and the 
 loud laugh that stopped suddenly whenever Mamma tapped 
 
156 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 with her parasol, (there wasn't so much as a knocker or a 
 bell to be seen,) we both felt satisfied that my fine barristers, 
 instead of being at their Court indeed, were at their nasty 
 filthy pipes again! 
 
 The Chambers themselves, I'm sure, were the dustiest, 
 gloomiest, closest, and untidiest rooms I ever saw. But 
 when I recollected that there was nothing but a pack of men 
 living in the house, I wasn't at all astonished, either at the 
 condition of the staircase, which they held in common, or at 
 the appearance of the apartments all the way up it. It only 
 proved to me what a dreadful state they would come to if it 
 wasn't for us poor women, and how they would pass the 
 whole of their lives up to their knees in dust — the poor help- 
 less things — unless some of us angels condescended to look 
 after them a little. 
 
 Really, the first thought I had when I entered that abomi- 
 nable garret, and saw the dust come up in clouds as I crossed 
 the carpet, was, how sadly that poor Maurice wanted a wife. 
 In fact, I couldn't help promising myself, that when I was 
 Mrs. 0' Saveloy, the first thing I would do, would be to send 
 in a good brawny charwoman during the honeymoon, and 
 have the whole place, as well as Mr. Sox, thoroughly swept 
 out, and plenty of good wholesome soap and soda applied to 
 the boards. 
 
 One day, while we were in the room, waiting for Mr. 
 O' Saveloy to make his appearance, Mamma would go prying 
 about, and looking into every corner and cupboard in the 
 place. The first thing that surprised us was, that although the 
 table was covered with briefs — on which were endorsed fees 
 to a large amount — and you consequently thought the place 
 wholly devoted to the law, still there was a peculiar smell 
 about the chambers of, here coffee, there cheese, sometimes 
 herrings, and now beer, and then apples, and always pipes. 
 Mamma, who was sniffing all round the room, saying, " What 
 is that the smell of, my darling?" at last stopped right oppo- 
 site the cupboard, in a corner of the room, and after exclaim- 
 ing, with another sniff, " Whatever it is, it's here, my pet," 
 opened the door. 
 
 And then, was there ever such a sight ! There stood a 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 157 
 
 greasy girdiron, side by side with at least a dozen dirty stale 
 tobacco pipes. Here was a grubby tin saucepan, with a 
 blacking bottle inside it. In one corner was a pile of dirty 
 plates and dishes, and just over them, I should say, a pound of 
 kitchen candles. In another corner was a trumpery Ba- 
 chelor's Comfort, indeed ! guaranteed to boil a quart of water, 
 with a bundle of firewood, in less than five minutes. And 
 on the shelf, just above it, stood a tin " Multum in Parvo," 
 which was warranted to cook a steak, do an 'egg, steam 
 potatoes, or boil water for shaving, with a spoonful or two of 
 any spirits, British brandy excepted. On the top shelf, all 
 among the black lead and Bath brick, stood three unwashed 
 tea cups, and the knives and forks; whilst at the bottom 
 there were, I should say, about half a peck of coals, and about 
 a dozen potatoes, but they were so grimy, that really it re- 
 quired a practised eye to tell, at first sight, whether the 
 potatoes were really kidneys or the best lord-mayors. 
 
 Mamma closed the door of the cupboard directly she 
 had seen the whole of its contents, declaring that the 
 smell was enough to knock a Christian down. Then 
 telling me she shouldn't at all wonder if the whole place was 
 full of such dirt, she went up to a box upon four legs that 
 was standing near the table. The thing opened in the 
 middle, and, dear me, if it wasn't a nest of pigeon-holes for 
 papers, but which the ingenuity of Messrs. O' Saveloy and 
 Sox had converted into a larder. There were all their differ- 
 ent provisions arranged in true legal form under their respec- 
 tive initials. Under the letter — 
 
 A, was a pen'orth of Apples and Anchovies. 
 
 B, contained Bread, Butter, and Bacon. 
 
 C, had Chops, Cheese, Candles, Cocoa, &c. 
 E, Mamma found an Egg in. 
 
 H, had a Herring. 
 
 P, a Polony, a Pewter Pot, Pickles, and Pipes. 
 
 S, was devoted to Sausages, Sugar, and Soap, and 
 
 T, to Tobacco, Tea, and Trotters. 
 
 Poor mamma, who was smelling and looking at her straw- 
 coloured gloves with extreme disgust, said she never knew 
 such an eccentric being as that dear Maurice. A man to 
 
158 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 live in that filthy state, and yet willing to settle a hundred 
 thousand pounds on his poor dear confiding wife! Well, all 
 she could say was, that he really seemed to her to be a second 
 Elwes, or she might say a gentlemanly Dancer; and she 
 really shouldn't wonder if presently she found bank-notes 
 stuffed into old worsted stockings, and rolls upon rolls of 
 sovereigns stowed away in the arms of all the chairs. 
 
 In pursuance of this notion, Ma lifted up the lid of Mr. 
 O' Saveloy's wig-box, and if there weren't two plates of cold 
 a la mode beef in it, with the name of — 
 
 WORRAL, 
 HOLBORN HILL, 
 
 printed on the crockery. 
 
 In fact, there wasn't a thing in the room that didn't do 
 duty in two or three ways. For instance, the highly popular 
 blue bag, in which the gentlemen of the bar usually carry 
 their papers to court, had been ingeniously converted into 
 an invisible coal sack. Poor Mamma, not for a moment sus- 
 pecting that the bag could be applied to such a purpose, and 
 feeling some strange bits of something at the bottom of it, thrust 
 her hand with great curiosity right down it, and to her horror 
 converted her beautiful straw-coloured gloves into the most 
 perfect black kid; and then the thought flashed across her 
 mind, that the blue thing w r as used as a reticule for coals, 
 and that Mr. 0' Saveloy was in the habit of having his 
 Walls Ends in by the bag-full. 
 
 When I came to put all these things together in my own 
 mind, the reader may well imagine I began to grow rather 
 nervous. I told Mamma of my fears, but she, far from agree- 
 ing with me, would have it that I was a stupid suspicious 
 little puss, and that when I had lived as long as she had in the 
 world, I should know that many much more eccentric things 
 were done by persons with twice the means of dear Maurice. 
 Did I not know that the celebrated Dancer, who died worth 
 considerably more than a plum, used over and over again to 
 sit upon his victuals in order to warm them up again, and so 
 save the expense of fire? Then there was that Elwes, who left 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 159 
 
 at least a million behind him, he used to travel miles upon 
 miles upon nothing more than a hard boiled egg, and at least 
 whatever Mr. 0' Saveloy's faults might be, he didn't go to those 
 extremes. 
 
 As Mr. O' Saveloy kept us waiting a long time, Mamma, 
 to while away the interval, continued her examination of the 
 apartments. On approaching what appeared to be a chest of 
 drawers, Ma, with the view of looking into the state of 
 Maurice's buttons, tried to open it; but finding the drawers 
 rather difficult to move, she gave a good strong pull, when 
 to her horror the whole of the front came away in her hands, 
 and she fell right upon her back, while the press-bedstead, 
 which the front was used to conceal, being released from its 
 hold, burst forward, bedding, clothes, and all came to the 
 ground with a bang, burying poor screaming Mamma com- 
 pletely under it. 
 
 Mr. O' Saveloy, hearing the noise, rushed into the apart- 
 ment in his wig and gown, (for it was Mr, Sox's day out,) 
 and to his horror discovered Mamma under his turn-up bed- 
 stead, with her lovely new white chip crushed to pieces, and 
 her head only just visible from beneath it. 
 
 Quick as lightning Maurice flew to the pigeon-holes, and 
 snatched a bottle of L.L. (whiskey) from under its proper 
 letter. Taking a wine-glass from G-. he filled it to the brim 
 with the pure spirit, and begged Mamma to drink that, as it 
 would do her a power of good. 
 
 Mamma, fancying it was soothing medicine, and thinking 
 it might be nasty, drank it off as quickly as she could. No 
 sooner had she swallowed it, than, waving her hand and gasp- 
 ing for breath, she tried to stammer out — "Hah! you've — 
 hah ! — given me — hah ! — a glass of raw spirits — augh !" 
 
 " What ! you're afther knowing the taste of thim, are yer, 
 ye divil?" replied Mr. 0' Saveloy, with a roguish wink, fill- 
 ing up the glass for himself. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Maurice! you don't know — hah! — what you've 
 done to me — hah !" replied Mamma, who had not yet regained 
 her breath. " It will be — hah! — the death of me! I know 
 it will!" 
 
 "Nivir fear, darlint!" replied 0' Saveloy, laughing; "sure 
 
160 WHOM TO MARRi' 
 
 an' a hogshid of such as that same wouldn't harrum the hair 
 of your hid, it wouldn't." 
 
 " Ah ! it's all very well for you Irish gentlemen, who are 
 accustomed to it from your cradle," answered Mamma, who 
 was leaning on me; " but I feel it flying to my head, and in 
 ten minutes I shall be totally deprived of my senses, and un- 
 able to stand maybe." 
 
 " Divil a bit, my iligint mother, if I may make so bowld," 
 replied Maurice, smiling; -maybe it's a little early for ye, 
 but it'll do ye all the good in life." 
 
 Poor Mamma was not mistaken in her idea as to the effects 
 of the fiery L.L. whiskey upon her; for in about a quarter 
 of an hour after, she began laughing and laughing away at 
 everything Mr. O' Saveloy said; and then she got to speak 
 very thick, and mix up her words. 
 
 First she asked Mr. O'Saveloy if he happened to have any 
 " selling smalts" in the house, meaning all the time smelling 
 salts. Then she begged for some cold water, saying that I 
 could " tathe her bemples," and at last I found out she meant 
 " bathe her temples." 
 
 After this, poor Mamma had a fit of sentiment and hic- 
 cups, and began speaking of her extreme love for me, and 
 made me blush up to my eyes when she told Mr. O'Saveloy 
 what a blessing — yuck! — I should be to him — yuck! — and 
 how she knew it would break her heart — yuck! — to part with 
 me — boo — o — o! — and how she was a woman — yuck! — of 
 very deep affections — yuck! — and Mr. de Roos didn't treat 
 her as she deserved — boo — o — o — o! Here she burst out 
 crying, and throwing her arms round Maurice's neck, began 
 kissing him and calling him her dear son — yuck ! — and declar- 
 ing that if it — yuck! — was the last words she had to speak — 
 yuck! — she had always done her duty to that hard-hearted 
 man, Mr. de Roos — boo — o — o! 
 
 At last Maurice got a cab; but when the man saw the state 
 Mamma was in, he said that the lady was tipsy, and he 
 warn't bound by the " hact" to take drunken fares. 
 
 This called forth poor Mamma's indignation to such a de- 
 gree, that it was as much as Maurice — who behaved very 
 well — and I could do to prevent her breaking her parasol 
 over the man's back. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 161 
 
 As it was, she went on in such a way, and so loud, that 
 she collected a ring of little boys and lawyers' clerks, who 
 commenced laughing at her; for, to tell the truth, with her 
 broken bonnet and peculiar expression, she looked as if the 
 disgraceful state in which she was in arose, not so much by 
 accident, as from an old and confirmed habit. 
 
 At last, thank goodness — for I was ready to sink with 
 shame — I got her into a cab. And even then, gracious, 
 what a piece of work I had with her. First, she insisted 
 upon being driven to Mr. Gee's, in the Albany, saying that 
 she felt it to be her duty as a mother to tell him a bit of her 
 mind. And when I wouldn't allow this, she burst into tears, 
 and calling me an ungrateful child, told the cabman to drive 
 to Mr. Dossey's, saying she had long wished to expose 
 him to the neighbourhood, and now she would do it. At 
 length, she was again quiet; but even then she begged of me, 
 in the tenderest terms, to take her to that old wretch of a 
 Lord Fortiwinx, and allow her to comb his wig for him. On 
 my refusing, she again burst out crying, and asking me where 
 I expected to go to, at last fell asleep, and continued so 
 until we reached home. 
 
 But here, alas ! our troubles began anew. She would have 
 it the footman had winked at her in an impudent way, and 
 looked at her with a nasty low grin she didn't at all like. I 
 needn't tell the gentle reader that this was nothing but fancy 
 on Mamma's part, and that the man had behaved himself ex- 
 cellently all the while. In the hall, Ma told him to leave her 
 presence, and gave him warning to go that day month, add- 
 ing, that she never did like the looks of the man, and, in fact, 
 didn't feel herself safe with him about her, for she was more 
 than ever convinced that he was a regular Don Giovanni in 
 plush breeches. 
 
 When Papa saw the state she was in, he called me into the 
 room, and asked me whether I had ever before noticed that 
 Mamma was addicted to strong liquors. I really didn't know 
 what to say — for I didn't like to tell Papa how the accident had 
 occurred — and my foolish hesitation only made it much worse, 
 and served to convince him that Mamma of late had taken to 
 the bottle. The consequence was, that he immediately took 
 
 M 
 
162 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 away from her all the keys of the cellaret, and wouldn't allow 
 her to take so much as a glass of wine at dinner every day, 
 for fear, as he told her, that the old passion should return. 
 
 All this used to annoy poor Mamma so, that she would set 
 to work and scold Papa; on which he, alas! would imagine 
 she had been drinking again, and would often turn round to 
 me, and, with a frown, tell me that he could not imagine where 
 my mother got the drink from, and that I really must keep 
 strict watch over her for the future. 
 
 One day, when, he thought Mamma's head was clear and 
 cool, and that he might venture to speak to her reasonably 
 and dispassionately on the subject of her weakness, he took 
 her hand, and sitting down beside her on the sofa, began in 
 a kind and soft voice, exhorting her, that if really the 
 fearful appetite was so strong upon her that she had no com- 
 mand over it at times, and if she felt that she could not take 
 one glass, without a burning desire for many more coming 
 over her, why he should really advise her to take the pledge 
 of total abstinence. 
 
 This put Mamma in such a rage that, out of mere per- 
 versity, she would have the wine; and, indeed, when Papa 
 refused and locked it up from her, she sent out for it, and 
 began by drinking it so fast and regularly, out of mere ob- 
 stinacy, that in time I do verily believe she would have 
 run after it, out of mere habit. However, at last I sum- 
 moned courage to tell Papa of the mistake he was making, 
 and the evil he was working, and by the help of a few little 
 white fibs as to the cause of Mamma's previous state, at 
 last got them both to make it up again, and be as they were 
 before. 
 
 But to return to the wretch, O'Saveloy, and his disgraceful 
 partner, Mr. Sox. The day for my wedding was fast ap- 
 proaching. Papa made things very uncomfortable by the 
 peculiar line of conduct he thought fit to adopt. " If I 
 chose to marry Mr. O'Saveloy," he would say, " I might do 
 so; but as he was a gentleman of whom he had not a very 
 high opinion, he must decline giving his consent to the union. 
 As I was no longer a child, of course I was at liberty to do 
 as I pleased, but he felt it his duty to warn me against ally- 
 

AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 163 
 
 ing myself with a gentleman of whom he could not help, 
 from all the circumstances, feeling not a little suspicious as to 
 his means and character." 
 
 When the da}' came for arranging the settlements, do 
 all we could, Papa would not accompany us to Maurice's 
 Chambers, he would, as he said, "wash his hands of the 
 business." 
 
 But before giving my readers a description of that dreadful 
 meeting, let me first give them an account of a conversation 
 which took place between Messrs. Sox and O' Saveloy, on the 
 evening previous, and which came to my ears in a way that 
 I am sure it is not necessary for me to mention, and if it 
 was, I shouldn't do it — that's all. 
 
 "Well, Maurice, my boy," said that demon, Sox, little 
 thinking a little bird I know had got his ear to the keyhole; 
 " so you found nothing at Doctors' Commons under the 
 name of De Koos." 
 
 "No, my jewel," said our friend Maurice, with a shrug of 
 his broad shoulders and a deep sigh — "nothing! though I 
 searched as many as half a dozen wills made by gentlemen 
 and ladies of that name, at no less an expense than a shilling 
 a piece; for do all I would, I couldn't get the blagheard at 
 the office to make me the usual allowance on taking a quan- 
 tity, and give me seven for the six shillings; and though I 
 have spent pounds and pounds in that very useful establish- 
 ment, and tould him I'd spent my last shilling in the place, 
 still he wouldn't let me even look at another on credit." 
 
 " Shameful!" cried Sox, throwing up his eyebrows and 
 hands — " especially after all your countrymen do for the office." 
 
 " Thrue, for you, Albert, my boy" — and sure the place was 
 so full of Irish boys, you might have sworn you had mis- 
 taken your way, and got into a lodging-house in Craven 
 Street, Strand. Here stood a boy from County G-alway; 
 there was a smart Tipperary lad; here was an ould friend 
 from Mayo; and, indeed, the pickings of ' Ould Ireland' 
 were scattered all over the room — " busy looking after the tin 
 that our ancestors, the Phenicians, my boy, used to love to 
 come to England for. Even the clerk himself has got an 
 illegint touch of the brogue, by this time." 
 
 m 2 
 
164 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Ah!" said Sox, " I know you Paddies are fond of the 
 place, but for ray part, I haven't much faith in it; for I once 
 loved a dear girl — a sweet angel of the name of Smith, at a 
 boarding school at Turnham Green, and hearing she had 
 some money left her, went to look after her dear uncle John's 
 will, but deuce take those John Smiths — but hang me if I 
 didn't spend fifteen to sixteen pounds, and waste a month's 
 hard labour, and was no nearer to the sweet angel's property 
 after all!" 
 
 " Now, to my mind," continued that little wretch, Sox, 
 " the waters at Harrowgate and Cheltenham are the cheapest 
 investment one can make of one's money. I know a friend that 
 picked up a very tidy consumption there, and has been very 
 comfortably off ever since; and the beauty of it is, the angels 
 one finds in those Paradises don't remain long on one's 
 hands; so that, you see, age is no object. — Well, Maurice, but 
 about to-morrow — what are you going to do, old fellow?" 
 
 " Why, I had some very pleasant conversation with the 
 old boy, her rivirind Father," answered that O'Saveloy, 
 twiddling his pet sandy whisker; ' ; and I very plainly told 
 him, that for every thousand he gave the darlint, I would 
 settle ten thousand, up to a hundred." 
 
 '•' But you haven't ten pence," replied Sox; " and there's 
 that fifteen shillings you owe me for looking into the v>ills 
 about those two Miss Bells." 
 
 " All right, my boy," answered Mr. Maurice, slapping his 
 friend on the back. " And sure, an' what does it matter, if I 
 haven't got ten pence in the world, can't I settle what I please 
 upon the lady? If I had to pay the money down, that would 
 be a different thing entirely; but as they always give long 
 credit in marriage settlements, why, I'm determined to do the 
 thing handsomely. Now, there's that No. 86, Fleet Street, I 
 intend to make her a present of the house — upon my word I 
 do, my boy." 
 
 " But it isn't yours to give," roared Mr. Sox; " what on 
 earth are you talking about?" 
 
 " Well, and sure, what does that matter?" replied Mr. 
 Maurice. " I don't suppose the respectable tenant will let her 
 have it just because I choose to give it her. Then, to con- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 165 
 
 vince her that she's married a gentleman, don't I intind to 
 make over to her and her children for ever, all my right 
 title, interest, and property in the New River Company; and 
 ain't each share in that same worth four thounsand, any 
 day?" 
 
 " Come, that's cool," answered Mr. Sox; " and you know 
 you haven't any right, title, interest, or property at all in the 
 Company." 
 
 " And isn't it, then, the more easily made over to the 
 darlint creature?" replied that wicked, bad, bad man, O'Save- 
 loy. " And is it Maurice that's the boy to refews the 
 jewel that iligant castle and well cultivated estate, near 
 Flaherty, in the county Corruk." 
 
 " Castle Flaherty!" exclaimed Mr. Sox; "but it is'nt yours, 
 man alive." 
 
 " Well; and is it yours, asked Mr. Maurice?" 
 
 " No; of course, it's nothing to me," answered Mr. 
 Albert. 
 
 " Then why on airth, do you grumble about my giving it 
 to the poor creature," replied Mr. 0' Saveloy, quite indignant. 
 
 Thus I was credibly informed these two worthies passed 
 the entire evening, and when the morning came, who should 
 surprise Mr. O'Saveloy, whilst he was yet fast asleep in his 
 chest of drawers, but a gentleman dressed in the first style 
 of fashion, with a nose as red and hooked as a lobster's claw, 
 and a complexion yellow as rhubarb, knocking loudly at the 
 outer door, he requested the boy to open it, as he wished to 
 make an appointment for a consultation. No sooner had poor 
 Mr. Sox admitted him, than the stylish Israelite gave a loud 
 whistle, and up came a very nasty hungry, and wretched- 
 looking being, who had been waiting below, and whom Mr. 
 Albert immediately recognised as his old friend the bailiff's 
 follower. 
 
 The gentleman demanded the payment of four-pounds- 
 three-and-fourpence for back rent, which demand coming 
 inconveniently upon Mr. O'Saveloy, at a moment he was 
 about to settle his hundred thousand pounds upon me, the 
 descendant of the Irish King was obliged to confess that it 
 was beyond his power to settle the claim just then, where- 
 
166 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 upon the hook-nosed and highly stylish gentlemen requested 
 his rusty friend to take up his abode at the quarters, and 
 billet himself upon the brace of barristers. 
 
 Then arose a new difficulty, — how was it possible for Mr. 
 0' Saveloy to settle his vast property on me with a man in 
 possession in the room for four-pounds-three -and-fourpence? 
 What was to be done ! The follower could not be prevailed 
 upon, either for love or money, to quit the apartments ; and 
 time was now going on so fast, that we were expected every 
 moment to knock at the door. 
 
 At length, a bright idea illumined the gloomy brain of the 
 wretched O'Saveloy. He would get the man to pass as his 
 Father, and all might yet be well. Borrowing half-a-crown 
 of his friend Sox, and pressing it into the follower's grubby 
 hand, asked him if he would consent for that sum to adopt 
 him for half-an-hour as his favourite Son. 
 
 When the man had consented, and heard how much pro- 
 perty he was going to settle and make over to his dearly be- 
 loved boy, on his approaching marriage, his conscience smote 
 him, and he said, very justly, that he ought not, as a father, 
 to aid and abet his favourite boy in such extravagant ways, 
 unless he was allowed a liberal per-centage on the proceeds of 
 the plan. 
 
 O'Saveloy assured him that, if the affair turned out as well 
 as he expected, that he was not the boy to forget the duty he 
 owed to his parent, especially as he intended that he should be 
 a very good father to him. 
 
 Then, taking out the well-washed chintz dressing-gown of 
 the firm, they enveloped him in it, and putting on his head 
 the smoking cap of O'Saveloy, and taking the muslin blind 
 from the window, and tying it round his neck, gave him Mr. 
 Sox's Meerschaum pipe, and declared that he had all the air 
 and appearance of a real Nabob, just returned from India 
 with half a liver and nearly a plum. 
 
 Scarcely had they enjoined him to say as little as possible, 
 and grumble as much as he could, when Mamma's parasol 
 was heard tapping at the door, and when w r e entered the room, 
 if he actually hadn't the impudence to introduce the fellow to 
 us as his much-respected father, Lieutenant - General 
 
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AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 167 
 
 O'Saveloy, K.C.B., telling us that he was a distinguished 
 officer, who had signalized himself in many an action, and 
 taken scores of prisoners with his own hands. 
 
 When Mamma heard this, she made him her most polite 
 bow, and smilingly said she was highly delighted to meet so 
 illustrious a character, and hoped that their acquaintance 
 would not end there, but that she should have the honour of 
 seeing him at our house before long. 
 
 The gallant General replied to this, " Thankee, Ma'am; if 
 ever there should be any distress in your house, I have no 
 doubt you will see me there, Ma'am." 
 
 " Good generous creature; but pray do not wait till then," 
 said Mamma. " How like a soldier ! Rough — always ready 
 to serve a fellow-creature in difficulties." 
 
 " Oh, sure, and you may well say that!" exclaimed O'Save- 
 loy; " haven't I known the old boy here walk miles and wait 
 weeks to find an opportunity of serving them." 
 
 "Dear, dear me! what noble disinterestedness on the 
 General's part!" rejoined Mamma. " I am sure it will be the 
 proudest day of my life when I am allowed to claim relation- 
 ship with your son. Ah!" continued Mamma, pretending to 
 go into raptures — "ah! what a history your life must have 
 been. You must have gone through many trials, and been 
 witness to many a desperate defence." 
 
 " Why, yes, Ma'am," replied the broker's man; " I have 
 certainly many a time, and sometimes when the party de- 
 fending w T ern't worth powder and shot!" 
 
 " Gracious me, how horrible!" cried Mamma, throwing up 
 her hands. 
 
 " You may well say so, Ma'am," replied the General, coolly; 
 an execution in a house isn't a very pleasant thing, I can 
 assure you." 
 
 " An execution in a house J" screamed Mamma, horror 
 struck. " You don't mean to tell me, my dear General, that 
 you have ever known such brutal acts !" 
 
 "Indeed, I have Marm!" he answered, smoking away; 
 " and what's more, I've often had to take the body away 
 myself, off the premises, though it's been a nasty job, I can 
 assure you." 
 
168 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Ugh! lord a mercy me; you may well say that!" replied 
 Mamma, shuddering at the picture; "but gentlemen in your 
 'profession require to be made of steel." 
 
 " But look you, Ma'am, what's a man in my station to do?" 
 returned the Sheriff's Officer, growing eloquent. " You 
 hears that such and such a party is trying to steal a march 
 upon you, and they tells you that they intends to bring up 
 their van, under the cover of the night, and carry off all the 
 baggage and every article of any value in the place. Well, 
 what's a gallant officer to do; why, gather together his men 
 to be sure, and rush down upon the parties when they least 
 expect you, and take the place either by storm or stratagem; 
 or else surround it, and pour into it, on the first opportunity, 
 so many Bums, that the place grows too hot to hold them, 
 and they are obliged to surrender, and then you walks in, and 
 takes possession in the name of her Gracious Majesty. 
 
 " Och! Mrs. De Roos, my respected Fayther will fight his 
 battles to you over the dinner table," interrupted Mr. 
 O'Saveloy, who was growing a little nervous, lest the son of 
 Slowman should make some dreadful blunder, and put an end 
 to the whole business. 
 
 But, thank goodness, it seemed as if the hand of Provi- 
 dence was hanging over me in all my distresses! For no 
 sooner had Mr. O'Saveloy opened the draft of my settlement, 
 in which he made over to me and the heirs of my body, law- 
 fully begotten, (like his impudence, indeed,) all his rubbish- 
 ing property to the amount of a hundred thousand pounds, 
 (I never saw such a hundred thousand pounds!) and said, 
 " Now to business, if you please ladies," than that Mr. 
 Albert Sox, who all the time had been bobbing, in his wig 
 and gown, in and out of the room, with the blue bag in his 
 hand — much to the annoyance of the lynx-eyed man in pos- 
 session, and to the delight of the cunning Manners, who kept 
 winking and nodding as his friend crammed the bag with dif- 
 ferent moveables in the place — than Mr. Sox, believing that 
 the man in possession wouldn't dare to say a word, took the 
 nice German umbrella, and bowing, said, in a bland voice — 
 
 " And since I can be of no assistance here, I will to my 
 business also, with the kind permission of the ladies — 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 169 
 
 Good morning — good morning, and my best wishes to you 
 all." 
 
 He was about to open the door, when up bounced the 1 
 pseudo-general, and seizing hold of the blue bag in one 
 hand, and the silk umbrella in the other, said, as he shook his 
 head — 
 
 " Come, none of this here ! it wont do you know ; I am not 
 to be done in that there style — so, come!" (I give the man's 
 own words, I can assure the gentle reader.) 
 
 Poor Mr. Sox looked confounded and stupid, Mamma 
 stared, and I jumped off my chair with surprise. 
 
 But Mr. O'Saveloy with great presence of mind advanced 
 towards the Sheriff's Officer, and taking him by the hand, 
 said, — 
 
 " Och! Fayther, darlint, don't beafther giving way to any 
 such illusions !" then, turning to us, he pointed to his forehead, 
 and shaking his head, and lifting his eyebrows, whispered 
 with a sigh, " Poor old gintleman, he's not all right there; 
 you see he had a sun-stroke at Qui-lon, and has been touched 
 in his upper story ever since." 
 
 The Sheriff's Officer, however, unfortunately for Mr. Mau- 
 rice, overheard this strange excuse for his conduct, and grow- 
 ing extremely angry at the trick that he fancied had been 
 played upon him, so that Mr. Sox might have an opportunity 
 to decamp with the property from the premises, drew out his 
 writ, and having showed it to Mamma, who was petrified with 
 astonishment, he declared that his upper story was all right, 
 though he feared that the upper story of Messrs. O'Saveloy 
 and Sox would not be so in a day or two. 
 
 No sooner had Mamma heard and seen this, than giving a 
 scream almost as loud and shrill as Mrs. Yates in the 
 " Wreck Ashore;" she rose from her chair, and calling them 
 both bad — bad men, and telling them, " she would go down 
 on her bended knees, and thank Heaven for the lucky escape 
 we had had from the fangs of the two matrimonial vampires," 
 sailed out of the room, dragging poor me with her, and 
 having reached Holborn we hailed a cab, and both of us had 
 a good comfortable cry up to our Crescent. 
 
 When we reached home I went to bed, and didn't get up 
 
170 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 again for a week or two, for I thought that the very least I 
 could do, after having been so grossly deceived and tricked at 
 the expense of the very best and purest feelings of a poor 
 trusting maiden's nature. Besides, to tell the truth, I found 
 it an excellent time for reading up all the back novels that 
 had lately come out — and I've no notion of subscribing to a 
 Library, and not using it. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 17 1 
 
 OFFER THE EIGHTH. 
 
 THIS WAS INDEED AN OFFER, AND ONE THAT REALLY SEEMED SO 
 ADVANTAGEOUS, THAT I FELT IT TO BE A DUTY THAT I OWED 
 BOTH TO MYSELF AND MY DEAR PAPA TO ACCEPT. BUT IF I 
 HAD KNOWN AS MUCH THEN AS I DO NOW, I CAN ONLY SAY I 
 WOULD HAVE SEEN ANY GENTLEMAN WITH A PASSION FOR STEEPLE- 
 CHASING FURTHER, BEFORE I HAD CONSENTED TO TAKE HIM FOR 
 BETTER OR WORSE, UNLESS, INDEED, HE HAD INSURED HIS NECK 
 IN EVERY ONE OF THE RESPECTABLE INSURANCE OFFICES IN LONDON 
 FOR THE HIGHEST AMOUNT ALLOWED BY ACT OF PARLIAMENT, 
 AND SETTLED ALL THE POLICIES ON HIS POOR CONFIDING WIFE. 
 THEN I SHOULD HAVE FELT MYSELF BOUND TO LOOK UPON IT IN 
 THE LIGHT OF A GOOD MATCH, AND MY DEAR DEPARTED CHARLES 
 MIGHT HAVE GONE HUNTING AS MUCH AS HE LIKED. BUT, AS 
 IT IS, I HAVE THE SATISFACTION OF KNOWING THAT I HAVE 
 WASTED THE PRIME OF MY LIFE UPON A TRUMPERY BOY, WITH 
 CERTAINLY VERY GOOD EXPECTATIONS, (DRAT THOSE EXPECTA- 
 TIONS!) BUT — AS THE LAWYER SAID TO CONSOLE ME— THOUGH 
 HE HAD ANY AMOUNT OF WEALTH IN POSSE, STILL (BOTHER TAKE 
 IT !) UNFORTUNATELY HE HAD SCARCELY A PENNY IN ESSE. HOW- 
 EVER, THERE WAS ONE CONSOLATION, IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN WORSE. 
 THANK GOODNESS, THERE WAS NO FAMILY! 
 
 To tell the candid truth, this sad termination to my 
 attachment to that Irish O' Saveloy (if ever I am driven to 
 advertise for a husband in the Sunday Times, I certainly 
 shall put at the bottom of it, " No Irish need apply") did 
 not have that effect upon my health that my first disappoint- 
 ment had; still, as I felt that it ought to have a much stronger 
 hold upon my mind, I persuaded myself and the doctors that 
 I was very much cut up indeed, and felt satisfied that I 
 should never be thoroughly myself again. For a whole 
 fortnight I lived upon nothing but that filthy water-gruel and 
 
172 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 beef-tea, still, bother take it! I could not fall away; and 
 though I dieted myself night and day, yet when I got up, 
 I was much fatter — from taking no exercise — than when I 
 went to bed. I would insist, however, upon having my hair 
 clipped, and if I hadn't, I do verily believe that I should 
 have been forced to have my head shaved, and given the 
 talented artist in hair, next the Polytechnic, employment for 
 a month at least; and I am sure that if he could make 
 Priscilla Macdonald's carrots look well as bracelets, there is 
 no knowing what chains he might have made with my 
 chestnut. I don't know if the gentle reader has seen his 
 Hairy Weeping Willows, but really they are the most 
 affecting souvenirs I ever saw in all my life, and would be 
 thoroughly like nature if he would but dye them green. 
 
 But to return to that monster in human form, called 
 O' Saveloy. I declare the disreputable descendant of the 
 Irish King, not content with deceiving me, must go all round 
 the neighbourhood deceiving our tradesmen as well, and telling 
 them that I wanted some of the most expensive articles in 
 their shops, directed that those he selected might be sent 
 round with his compliments. Of course, they were very nice 
 as presents, but when I found the bills pouring in one after 
 another for a pack of trumpery I never wanted, I couldn't 
 help looking upon them in quite a different light. When 
 Mamma gave the people to understand that she'd never pay 
 one sixpence for the paltry gewgaws, I do verily believe a 
 week did not pass over our heads but we had a summons 
 from that vulgar Court of Requests — either for bouquets, or 
 gloves, or opera-boxes, or some stuff or other — so that it 
 really seemed as if Mamma's polite invitation to that horrid 
 man in possession was likely to be accepted much sooner than 
 was wished. However, Mamma, who dreaded the exposure, 
 at length was enabled by dexterous management to squeeze 
 the money out of the housekeeping, and to pay for Mr. 
 
 O'Saveloy's several presents to me out of the pudding. 
 
 ******** 
 
 What with one thing and another, I don't know what 
 would have come of me if that dear, charming girl, Emme- 
 line Dowdeswells, hadn't sent Mamma and me an invitation 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 173 
 
 to spend a month with them at their delightful Villa in the 
 suburbs of Canterbury. As Emmeline said she couldn't 
 hear of a refusal, and Mamma said she was sure, after what 
 had occurred, she could not afford to take me down to the 
 sea-side that year, why, we made the best of it, and accepted 
 the sweet girl's offer " with much thanks." Yet if we hadn't 
 heard that Canterbury was delightfully military, I do not 
 think that even the idea of embracing that lovely Emmeline 
 once more would have induced us to go to that horribly dull, 
 dingy, dusty town, with nothing but its Cathedral and brawn 
 to drag it into notice. Only -go we must ; for, as Ma said, 
 I really ought now to think more seriously than ever of 
 getting settled, and it was very well known that most of the 
 young officers were single men, with the best of prospects. 
 
 When we arrived at Canterbury, if that dear Emmeline 
 wasn't at the Rose Inn, with her Father's beautiful pony- 
 chaise, and she had on the loveliest pink drawn crepe 
 bonnet, that I declare all the time I was kissing her I 
 couldn't take my eyes off it, and kept wondering to myself 
 how much she could have given for it. Oh ! for the first 
 week I did think those Dowdeswells the nicest people living. 
 I declare I loved that dear old lady, and Mamma said she 
 felt at times as if she could hug that fine, stout, good-tem- 
 pered old man. Still the strange part of it was, that after 
 we had been there about a fortnight, our feelings somehow 
 began to change towards them. The old lady, I must say, 
 was very near, and, as Mamma said, the old gentleman was 
 not fit company for ladies. Besides, that Emmeline was so 
 selfish at bottom, there was no putting up with her. 
 
 Again, we had come down merely to get introduced to the 
 society of the Officers, and had condescended to accept the 
 Dowdeswells' invitation, under the belief that they moved in 
 the very best circles ; but we hadn't been a week in their 
 house before we, to our horror, found out that the Dowdes- 
 wells could not rise higher than apothecaries and retired 
 tradesmen. 
 
 However, Mamma was determined not to have spent our 
 railway fares for nothing. Accordingly, she strained every 
 nerve, and at last, finding out that the officers were a most 
 
174 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 eccentric set of beings, and were continually going about the 
 town, dressed up in all kinds of disguises, she at last came 
 to the conclusion, that every common man she saw had all 
 the air of a military man, and was perfectly satisfied that he 
 was an Officer having some intellectual amusement. 
 
 Mamma's conduct, though, was not so silly as it might at 
 first sight appear, for there was scarcely an " Officer and a 
 Gentleman" in the place that didn't delight in going about 
 the streets dressed up in such a way that one would have mis- 
 taken him for a " costermonger and a vagabond." 
 
 At one time, nothing would satisfy the intellectual 
 creatures, but they must needs go buying a donkey and a 
 cart, and lay heavy wagers amongst themselves, that, dressed 
 up as common men, they would, in a stipulated time, sell a 
 whole load of sand to the inhabitants of the town without 
 being recognised. This set poor Mamma on the qui vive, 
 and for days, not a donkey-cart did she see filled with the 
 article in question, but she w^ould lay out shillings in sand, 
 and pay the coarse, vulgar fellows of drivers all sorts of 
 compliments, in the hope that they might be officers in dis- 
 guise, which unfortunately they never were. 
 
 Then somebody told her that the Honourable Alfred 
 Padding was going all about the town in the elegant fancy 
 costume of a starved-out weaver, with a young wife and a 
 large family at home, all crying for bread; and that there he 
 used to stand in the middle of the street, assuring the ladies 
 that he had not got so much as a shirt to his back. Really it 
 was quite wonderful — when it became known that he 
 was a nobleman, and didn't want the charity he solicited — 
 ■what heaps of money were thrown to him ! while even those 
 who wouldn't give anything to the serious original, didn't 
 hesitate to throw out a half-crown to the jocular counterfeit. 
 Mamma, much to her annoyance, after having given crown- 
 piece after crown-piece to every oratorical beggar that went 
 past the house, in the hopes that she was giving it to the one 
 that didn't want it, at last got so tired of making so many 
 expensive mistakes, that she vowed she would hand the 
 very next of the shameful impostors over to the police. 
 Then, to her horror, she learnt that the first man she drove 
 
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AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 175 
 
 away from the house, was the noble vagabond whose good 
 graces she was so anxious to solicit. 
 
 Our next surprise was, to hear that Ensign Dawdle had 
 exchanged from Her Majesty's Sappies and Minors, — as that 
 wretch of a Mr. Gee called them, — into the very regiment 
 that was now stationed at Canterbury. Tired of his former 
 occupation, of living on raw rump-steaks for a month at a 
 time, to fit himself to pick up a hundred eggs in the hour, he 
 had now taken to the more refined amusement of putting on 
 a nasty blue smock frock, and going about from door to door 
 with a large basket of crockery. If he was lucky enough to 
 meet with a particularly nervous old lady, and could only get 
 into the passage to bargain with her, he would suddenly let 
 the whole basketful fall from his head, with a terrific smash 
 and crash, and scamper from the house, laughing fit to kill 
 himself at the excellent joke of the old lady's consternation. 
 
 Mamma thought this an excellent bit of fun, and just like 
 one of those exquisite strokes of wit to be expected from a 
 young gentleman with more money in his pocket, and time 
 on his hands, than he knew what to do with, and only wished 
 that the spirited young monkey would play the trick upon 
 her, for, from what she had heard, he had such good ex- 
 pectations, that it would do her heart good to see him. 
 
 Accordingly, she gave directions to the servant, that when- 
 ever a man called with crockery, she was to be sure not to 
 send him away, but to behave with the greatest politeness 
 to him, and request him to step into the parlour until Mamma 
 could wait upon him. 
 
 In pursuance with these directions, Mary came running 
 the very next afternoon to Mamma, to tell her that she had 
 shown a gentleman with a basket of china up into the draw- 
 ing-room, and that he was seated on the ottoman, waiting 
 for her„ 
 
 Mamma insisted upon my smoothing my hair, saying, that 
 it was impossible for me to tell what Providence had in store 
 for me. Then, having put on her best cap, she hurried with 
 me into the drawing-room, declaring that she had a presenti- 
 ment that this crockeryware man was none other than 
 that dear, eccentric Dawdle, and something within her told 
 
176 " WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 her that this very visit would be an event in my life — and 
 so, indeed, it was — in hers, as well as mine; for of course it 
 turned out, in the end, that the crockeryware man was no 
 more in the army than Mr. Dawdle was in the crockery line. 
 
 The man rose as we entered, and Mamma, drawing a chair 
 opposite to her own, requested he w< ould do her the favour to 
 be seated, saying, with, her blandest smile, " Will you allow 
 me, Captain, to offer you any refreshment ?" 
 
 Grinning w T ith astonishment, as well he might, the 
 crockeryware man answered, after wiping his mouth with 
 the back of his hand, " Thank'ee, Ma'am, you're werry kind, 
 and since yer are so pressen, I woul take jist a drain, if yer 
 happ'n to have sich a thing in ther house." 
 
 " A drain in the house, Captain ! We certainly have 
 one that does annoy us sometimes; but you are such a man, 
 Captain, for your jokes, that one never does know how to 
 take you," said Ma', turning round to me, and whispering, 
 " What a fine nose the Captain must have," adding, " Pray, 
 love, get out the cake and wine for him directly, for I am 
 sure, with that horrid load, the Captain must be ready to 
 drop." 
 
 All the time that I was getting it out, he kept looking, 
 first at Mamma, then at me; now scratching his head, as if 
 he were asking himself what on earth it could all mean; and 
 then fidgeting about on his chair, until he got right on the 
 edge of it, as if he were getting ready to start at a moment's 
 notice. 
 
 When he had taken the wine he seemed half afraid to 
 drink it, and held it in one hand, and stretching out the 
 other towards the cake I was offering him, he looked up, 
 grinning in my face, as if he was thinking what a capital 
 berth he had tumbled into; while Mamma, who fancied that 
 his surprise was only feigned, threw up her hands in admira- 
 tion of what she thought capital acting, and with an affected 
 simper said, " Dear me! how well you do keep up your cha- 
 racter, to be sure." 
 
 " Well, Marm," answered the wretch, " it be rather hard 
 now-a-days, 'specially with that little affair of Maidstone 'sizes 
 on a man's back." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 177 
 
 " I never knew any one so funny as you are, Captain, in 
 all my life," replied Mamma. " You military men will have 
 your jokes. But it's no use with me, Captain; I know who 
 you are as well as possible." 
 
 " Well, Marm, it warn't me as stript the passage, I can 
 'sure you," replied the creature. 
 
 " Oh! dear me, Captain! I'm sure I hope you don't fancy 
 I ever suspected you of such a thing for a moment," exclaimed 
 Mamma, with the utmost courtesy; "but now do let my 
 daughter and myself join in your laugh at these silly people 
 about here. Now tell me, Captain, do you sell many of these 
 trumpery things ?" 
 
 " Why no, Marm," he answered, getting serious, " I can't 
 say as how I've took more than a pair of trousers to-day, 
 though I had a hoffer of a humberrellea for this here werry 
 identical teapot; but the ribs worn't whalebone, and so it 
 worn't of no hearthly use whatsomdever to me, though, she 
 war a uncommon nice plump girl, to be sure, and I guv her 
 the wink, and told her that if she had sich a thing as a silver 
 spoon andy, maybe I could let her have a set o' real chaney 
 that would look terrible ansome in that back parlor, when she 
 war married to her young man as she wos keeping company 
 with." 
 
 As I saw the man's face reddening with the wine he had 
 been drinking, glassful after glassful, I thought it was high 
 time to whisper in Mamma's ear that I was convinced that 
 she was making another of her dreadful mistakes. But 
 Mamma told me I was an ignorant child, and had no percep- 
 tion of character; and scarcely were the words out of her 
 mouth, than the vulgar wretch drew his chair close to Mamma, 
 and nudging her with his elbow, said, in a disgusting way, 
 and with a nasty chuckle, " You seem to have a snug place 
 of it here, eh ?" 
 
 " Yes, it is a very comfortable place, Captain," replied 
 Mamma. " It is Mr. Dowdeswell's." 
 
 " Oh! that's the name of the family, is it, eh, Cookey ?" 
 continued the vulgar boor, positively taking Mamma and 
 myself for common servants ; " and master and missus is 
 out, are they ? Oh! I understands/' he added, with a strange 
 
 N 
 
178 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 look. Then turning to me, he said, "And Meary! come 
 here and sit down on t'other side of me, and make yerself 
 happy, there's a hangel." 
 
 Mamma started up in horror, and screaming out, " Cookey ! 
 cookey ! Did I hear him call me cookey ? Then the man's 
 no officer after all, and only a shameful impostor after all. 
 Oh! leave the house — leave the house, or I'll call in the 
 police !" 
 
 " Come, come, none of that there, my dear," he replied, 
 rising and advancing towards Mamma. " Come, I didn't 
 mean no offence; so tip us a bus, and let's be good friends as 
 we were afore. You see little Meary and I here don't go 
 having no breezes," added the impudent fellow, positively 
 chucking me under the chin. 
 
 But, as I withdrew from the fellow, he advanced towards 
 Mamma, and she raised her arms to keep him off, saying, 
 " Villain ! villain ! stand off, — stand off, I say, or I will have 
 you given in charge, I will." 
 
 " Holloa! so you wants a little pressing, old un, does yur! 
 Well, I must say I likes it better," he cried, running round 
 the room after poor terrified Mamma, while I rushed to the 
 door, and hurried down the stairs, to alarm the house, and 
 seek for assistance: and Mamma, taking advantage of the 
 open door, soon followed me ; and by the time we had 
 brought Mr. Dowdeswell from the garden, we found the man, 
 with the basket on his head, descending the staircase as coolly 
 as if nothing had happened. 
 
 Mr. Dowdeswell, in a stern voice, immediately demanded 
 of the fellow what he meant by entering his house, and 
 insulting ladies in the shameful manner he had. 
 
 " Yes, what do you mean by it ?" demanded Mamma, now 
 quite valiant — " you good-for-nothing scoundrel, yon ; what 
 do you mean by it, I say again." 
 
 " Mean ! why I means to say it was you as first begun it. 
 Wasn't I quietly trying to yarn a onest penny outside o'here, 
 and didn't the old un and the young un there have me haxed 
 up into the drawing-room, and begin a treating on me to 
 cake and wine, and call me cap'n, and a grinning at me, and 
 looking at me in a queer kind of way loike; and I'll ask you, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 179 
 
 old buffer, now, what was a body to think on that ere ? 
 Why, that the two on em had taken a fancy to a cove what 
 warn't perticler bad-looking, to be sure, and that's what I 
 mean. Now, what have them there got to say arter that, I 
 should like to know." 
 
 u Hoh!" shrieked Mamma, as she fell fainting into one of 
 Mr. Dowdeswell's arms. 
 
 " Hoh!" shrieked I, swooning into the other. 
 
 As the man saw Mr. Dowdeswell trying to support the 
 pair of us, the impudent fellow said, " I wish you well 
 through it, old codger; I suppose I can't take the old un there 
 off your hands, can I ? Well, good bye! give my love to 
 Meary when she comes to;" and then, thank goodness 
 gracious, took his departure ! 
 
 Scarcely could he have left the house when who should 
 march down from her room but that stupid, stupid, jealous 
 thing, Mrs. Dowdeswell, and seeing him with an arm round 
 each of our waists, and our two heads on his shoulders, stood 
 for a moment aghast on the bottom stair, with her hands lifted 
 up with horror; then springing at her poor little podgy husband, 
 she seized him by his powdered hair, and dragged him by it 
 along the passage, until he, in his agony, was obliged to 
 relinquish his hold of Mamma, who fell heavily on the mat at 
 the parlour-door, while I only escaped a similar fate by coming 
 to myself just at the critical moment. 
 
 After this, of course we were obliged to leave the roof of 
 the Dowdeswells, and to take up our abode at the principal 
 hotel ; for, as Mamma said, that after all the trouble we had 
 got into through the obstinacy of that Dawdle, she should not 
 think of leaving the place until after the Race-week and the 
 Race-ball was over. 
 
 Determined not to be foiled in her intention, Mamma 
 wrote to town, and got Papa to send her an introduction to 
 Dr. Buchanan, the first Physician in the place, and it was 
 not long before we were in the very best society of the 
 county, and we were introduced to that dear Dawdle long 
 before the Race-ball had come off. 
 
 Of course the first thing Mamma told him was the strange 
 scrape she had got into with that nasty crockery -man, through 
 
180 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 our desire to be introduced to him. We soon became good 
 friends, for, thanks to Mr. Gee, he had often heard of both 
 Mamma and myself before. Upon my word it was very funny, 
 but from the first it seemed as if we were made for each 
 other, for he was delighted with me, and used always to call 
 me Lotty, and declare I was a brick of a girl, — to use my 
 Charles's peculiar terms of endearment. 
 
 And, upon my word, most of the ladies in the town were 
 quite in love with Dawdle. He was the boldest rider in the 
 regiment, and had a whole room full of prizes won at Steeple 
 Chases. He had only had three upsets and killed two children 
 at tandem-driving. He was the best shot, too; and at pigeon 
 matches no one was like him. At billiards, he has often told 
 me himself, that he knew he could have made a very hand- 
 some living at the Divan. More than this, he had the largest 
 collection of knockers of any Captain of a similar number of 
 years' standing. The amiable creature had fought two duels, 
 and had always " winged his man" like a love. He had 
 studied deeply the noble art of self-defence under Cooper the 
 Gipsy, and he used to boast that there wasn't a cabman in all 
 London that would like to stand up and have a quiet quarter 
 of an hour with him. Fencing, Angelo had taught him, and 
 when he was over in France he was universally admired. 
 I'm sure he had a beautiful voice, and I declare he was a 
 most accomplished and amusing companion, and could imitate 
 sawing bits of wood, and eggs frying, to the life. His man 
 knocking a brick out of the chimney w r as alarmingly natural. 
 And as for what he called the pea-and-the-thimble rig, upon 
 my w r ord he was as great a proficient as if he had been bred 
 and born at a race-course, and regularly brought up to the 
 profession. The thing which he prided himself most upon 
 was his sleight of hand, which he called palming; and his 
 " sauter le coup" was the most perfect thing I ever saw in 
 all my life. In fact, Mamma, who seldom loses at whist, said 
 she wouldn't play with him for any money. Nor did his 
 virtues rest here. He could throw as many as twenty 
 summersaults one after another, and could hold a butcher's 
 hundred weight straight out for fifty seconds with one arm, 
 and he would take any person's bright poker, and strike it 
 over the muscles of his arm until it was bent double. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 181 
 
 Indeed, lie was, without exception, the most perfect and 
 highly accomplished gentleman I ever knew. He could 
 suit himself as easily to the society of the lowest as he could 
 to that of the highest in the land. St. Giles's or St. James's, it 
 was all the same to him, he was perfectly at home in either. 
 How could I help admiring such a man? Indeed I was only 
 happy when I was in his company. At least, from being so 
 much together, I found my taste gradually conforming to his, 
 and perceiving that nothing gave him so much pleasure as 
 when I endeavoured to imitate him, I at last began to take a 
 delight in doing it, and to feel annoyed when he laughed at 
 any blunders I committed, until with this constant practice 
 I soon got to be, in many exercises, quite his equal. I could 
 drive his mail phaeton quite as well as he did. I was almost 
 as bold a rider in the field, and seldom missed a meet of the 
 hounds if he was willing to take me. At trout or salmon 
 fishing I would throw a fly as dextrously as he would, and 
 with the gun I seldom missed my bird. He had even taught 
 me to smoke my cigarette after dinner, and to look forward 
 for my glass of spirits-and- water at bed-time, until at length 
 the whole regiment hailed me, in their own elegant language, 
 as a regular trump of a girl. 
 
 Though sometimes on my pillow I could hardly help con- 
 trasting my present tastes and habits with what they had 
 been but a few months back, and thinking what a totally dif- 
 ferent being I had become, and how utterly I had unsexed 
 myself, to gain the admiration and love of this man, and 
 remembering the early prophecy of my father, as to the 
 degraded thing I should ultimately be, if I continued in the 
 course I had then begun. 
 
 But in the morning, I soon shook oif the scruples of the 
 over-night. It had been all arranged that I was to be married 
 to Captain Dawdle, and whose taste else had I to adapt my 
 conduct to. If I pleased him, what cared I if all the world 
 beside were dissatisfied. 
 
 Well, on the last day before that of my marriage came, my 
 wedding-dress had been sent home, and tried on. Mamma 
 had kissed me affectionately, and told me that I was indeed 
 her own dear girl, and that a life of unalloyed happiness was 
 before me. I had at length won the prize I had so long 
 
182 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 sought after, and was about to become the wife of a gentle- 
 man of birth, education, and fortune; I should now find that 
 the world would look up to me with envy, and that, before 
 long, she was satisfied that I should bless her for the care and 
 pains she had been at in selecting so fit and estimable a mate 
 for me to be united to. 
 
 But what struck me as strange was, that Papa, all the 
 evening through, never once alluded to the subject of my 
 marriage on the morrow; and I could see that, though his 
 eyes were fixed on a book before him, his mind was far away 
 from the page; nor did he speak so much as a word to me, 
 until I arose to wish him good night. 
 
 Then taking me by the hand, he led me into his study, and 
 seating me beside him, he pressed my palm in his, and, with 
 visible emotion, told me that we were about to say " good 
 night" for, perhaps, the last time under that roof, beneath 
 which I had passed the whole of my life with him. 
 
 " Lotty," he said, " I have always given you to understand 
 that I have no right of control over your affections. They 
 w r ere the bounteous gift of your Heavenly Father, and it has 
 been my duty, as your earthly one, to guide and direct them. 
 Many years ago, I warned you against selling them for any 
 worldly or mercenary consideration, pointing out to you that 
 the only real equivalent for love was love; and that if you 
 bartered them on any other condition, you became that which 
 I loathed and trembled lest my daughter ever should be- 
 come. You know best whether, in your own secret soul, you 
 really love the man you are about to be wedded to. But if 
 I am not much mistaken, you have, in your solitary moments, 
 felt how he has unsexed you, and how he has seduced you, 
 not only to lay aside the lovely gentleness of woman, but to 
 put off from your nature all the homely and peaceful virtues 
 of the wife, as well as to sow in you a distaste of the blessed 
 cares of the mother. The qualities you admire in this man 
 who is to become your husband, are the very opposite to those 
 which he should admire in you; but having deprived you of 
 woman's meekness and timidity, which was your birthright, 
 depend upon it the union is so unnatural, that it cannot come 
 to good. And if you feel and know that what I say is true, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED, 183 
 
 do let me implore you, not only for your own happiness, but 
 his, not to swear to love and honour that man who has 
 demoralized you in taste, thought, and feeling. Here I sup- 
 pose ends my duty to you; my words you may pass by until 
 it be too late to heed them. However, let your trials come 
 upon you when they may, here, my child, shall always be a 
 home for you, and here a heart ever ready to console you, 
 when, alas! it may be too late to direct and guide." 
 
 All I could do was to sob out my thanks for his continual 
 and kind care of me, and to assure him that I felt convinced 
 that my union with Charles could only be one of happiness. 
 
 But all that Papa could say, in return, was to murmur, 
 " God grant that it may be so, Lotty! — God grant that it 
 may be so, my child!" 
 
 Upon my word, the happiest day of my life was the most 
 miserable morning I ever passed in the whole course of my 
 existence. We commenced crying at church. My father 
 cried when he gave me away; Charles cried when he took 
 me for his wedded wife; and I cried when I took him for my 
 wedded husband; and the bridesmaids cried because every one 
 else cried. 
 
 At breakfast, Papa made us all cry when he wished us joy 
 for the remainder of our days. Charles cried when he thanked 
 Papa for all the pleasing things he had said, and the joy that 
 had been heaped upon us; and when the time came for 
 Charles and myself to withdraw to the Continent, every soul, 
 down to the very servants, cried, as if I were about to be 
 handed over to the executioner, instead of the arms of my 
 dear Charles. 
 
 When we returned to England, Charles and I thought that 
 our happiness was never to end. Scarcely a pleasure but 
 what we could join in it, and enjoy it together. We hunted, 
 and shot, and fished together; and scarcely a sport that he 
 indulged in that I didn't participate in the pleasure with 
 equal joy. 
 
 But, alas ! how short was my reign of happiness and con- 
 tent doomed to be ! Charles had agreed to ride a steeple- 
 chase, and I don't know from what cause, but I parted with 
 him in fear. Scarcely had I been married to my reckless, 
 
184 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 high-spirited husband six weeks, before he was brought 
 home to me a bleeding corpse: he had been thrown from his 
 horse in a desperate leap, and falling upon his head, had been 
 deprived of his life, in the madness and fury of the sport. 
 
 I must leave to the imagination of the reader what were 
 my feelings on that awful — awful day. Suffice it, that even in 
 the uttermost depths of my agony I heard my father's voice 
 still ringing in my ears, as it warned me of the horrors that 
 impended over me, and that now indeed had fallen and 
 crushed me to the very earth — and dashing the cup of bliss 
 and hope from my lips, had left nothing but the very dregs 
 of despair for poor me to feast upon. 
 
 Unfortunately my husband's property was all in expecta- 
 tion, and dying before he inherited it, I w T as left a widow in 
 my youth, without even the widow's mite that I could call my 
 own. 
 
 "What was to become of me I knew not — all I felt was, that 
 my troubles were far from being at an end. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 185 
 
 OFFER THE NINTH. 
 
 HAH ! THERE ARE VERY FEW SINGLE OR MARRIED WOMEN THAT 
 CAN FORM A NOTION OF THE TRIALS THAT AWAIT US POOR, DEAR, 
 BROKEN-HEARTED, AND LONELY WIDOWS. OF COURSE, WHEN MY 
 BELOVED AND NEVER-TO-BE-FORGOTTEN HUSBAND WAS SNATCHED 
 FROM ME, I MADE A VOW I WOULD NEVER MARRY AGAIN. AS MT 
 SILLY, FLATTERING FRIENDS, TO CONSOLE ME IN MY HOUR OF 
 TROUBLE, WERE KIND ENOCJGH TO TELL ME THAT THE WIDOW'S 
 WEEDS BECAME ME ADMIRABLY, WHY IT STRUCK ME THAT I SHOULD 
 BE WANTING IN RESPECT TO THE MEMORY OF MY SAINTED DAWDLE, 
 IF I DID NOT WEAR THEM FOR A WHOLE TWELVEMONTH, AT 
 LEAST. 
 
 I was so excited at reverting to the painful fact of my poor 
 dear Charles's sudden decease, at the conclusion of ray last 
 chapter, that my feelings were too much for me. My tears 
 fell so fast upon my paper, that they blotted out each word 
 as soon as my pen had traced it. Besides, to tell the truth, 
 my printer had sent me word I must bring my sorrow 
 to a conclusion as quickly as possible, and that it was use- 
 less my grieving in the heart-rending and profuse man- 
 ner I was about to do, as he should be obliged to leave 
 out all my agony for want of space. So as I did not exactly 
 see the fun of weeping over one's poor dear dead-and-gone 
 husband in private, without even a soul to see how sadly one 
 was taking her bitter bereavement to heart, why, I wound up 
 the melancholy affair very rapidly — especially as that young 
 monkey of a boy was waiting below for the copy. Accord- 
 ingly, I scribbled a letter to the printer, saying I thought 
 he would find I had ceased weeping as he had requested, 
 adding that it wouldn't much matter, for I could bring in 
 my inconsolable affliction very nicely at the beginning of 
 the next chapter, and my feelings could easily stand over for 
 two or three weeks, or so, without losing much of their 
 poignancy. 
 
 o 
 
186 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Well, then, to return to my bitter bereavement. 
 
 "Ha a— ah!" 
 
 What an extraordinary cross-grained world this is ! One 
 moment we are making the whole of our dear lady friends 
 wretched with envy at our success in life; the next moment 
 we are delighting them with the bitterness of our disappoint- 
 ments. I'm sure when I was first married to my dear 
 Dawdle, (who is now at rest, thank Heaven! though he was 
 far from a good husband to me,) there wasn't a girl we 
 visited that didn't come running up to me on purpose to con- 
 gratulate me on my approaching wedding with a person of 
 Mr. Dawdle's extraordinary expectations and attractions. 
 Every one kissed me and told me, " I was the luckiest of 
 women, I was. They only wished they were me, and had 
 got those wicked black eyes of mine" — though all the time I 
 knew that directly my back was turned they would go shak- 
 ing their heads, and wondering whatever Mr. Dawdle could 
 have seen in me, and how on earth a man, with his mousta- 
 chioes and means, could have thrown himself away upon a 
 mere threadpaper as I was ! But no sooner did it be- 
 come known that my dear Charles (w r hose memory I love to 
 distraction, though I cannot help thinking that the least he 
 could have done for me was to have insured his life) had 
 been cut off in his prime, without coming into his property, 
 than all those who had congratulated me so warmly but a few 
 weeks before, began to throw up their nasty deceitful hands 
 and eyebrows, and to thank their stars they were not me, 
 indeed! — adding, that it was a sad, sad bereavement for me; 
 though they must and w r ould say it served me perfectly 
 right for going on in the way I had done with the man;* 
 and, further, that there always was something about Mr. D. 
 they never did half like. 
 
 * I trust I need not tell the gentle reader this -was nothing hut a 
 wicked, wicked story, and that I know for a positive fact that Rosa 
 Jasey was ready to bite her fingers off when she found all her flirta- 
 tions — and silk purses, and slippers, and embroidered braces, indeed — 
 had been thrown away upon Mr. Dawdle. I took good care, though, to 
 have them all returned to my lady the very first week of my honey- 
 moon — that I did. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 187 
 
 However, there was some little excuse to be made for the 
 poor things' nasty petty jealousies. Really when I returned 
 from our matrimonial trip up the Rhine, and saw the beautiful 
 manner in which the little box Charles had taken for me at 
 Notting-hill had been furnished, (indeed, Charles had given 
 a " carte blanche" to his upholsterers, and certainly they had 
 done their work magnificently,) — when I saw it all newly 
 fitted up, I say, from kitchen to attic, I could very well un- 
 derstand any poor unmarried girl — however fond she might 
 be of me — being ready to tear my eyes out with vexation, at 
 the idea of a " mere nobody" like myself having been able to 
 get such a splendid roof over her head. 
 
 Oh! of all the palaces in a band-box, I do think that pet of 
 a Fuchsia Villa (don't you think the name a pretty one, gentle 
 reader?) was the loveliest I ever beheld in the whole course 
 of my life. To look at it outside, one would have thought it 
 was nothing more than a little, humble, trumpery cottage, far 
 away in the country. It was built in what Master Charles 
 (bless him!) would call " the curds-and-whey order of archi- 
 tecture," and certainly I must confess it was, externally, very 
 much after the style of the celebrated little, romantic-looking 
 milk and bun shops, at the park-gates. Outside it was 
 covered over with unbarked bits of wood, as if it had been, 
 put together in the backwoods of America, where a brick was 
 not to be had for love or money. Then all over the lawn 
 stood seats made out of the most crooked boughs of trees that 
 could be put together. They were the loveliest things to look 
 at, certainly — but the most uncomfortable to sit down upon; 
 for positively the backs were so knotty and zigzaggy, and the 
 elbows were so lumpy and spiky, and the seats were so hard 
 and ribbed, that if you sat down on one for a moment or two, 
 I declare you got up with your body all over dents, and 
 marks, and pins and needles. 
 
 By the lovely thatch that surmounted the cottage, every- 
 body would have fancied we were always up and stirring with 
 the lark, and that it hardly cost us a shilling for candles all the 
 year round. However, just to let the people who stopped to 
 look at our little box know that the inmates were not altogether 
 uncivilized, I bought a beautiful pet of a bright brass wire- 
 o2 
 
188 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 cage, with a Java sparrow in it, and hung it up between the 
 muslin curtains in the little bow-window of our sweet pretty 
 parlour. Of an evening, too, I used to throw the windows 
 open, and play away and sing Italian songs and French 
 " Romans" just to show the passers by we were not exactly 
 the rustic rosy boors that the outside of our house would have 
 made us out. 
 
 Oh! it was so delightful, too, to see the astonishment of all 
 one's friends at finding that which was a humble cottage out- 
 side, almost a perfect palace within. And instead of their 
 catching Charles and myself over our bacon and cabbage, 
 and hasty-pudding at one, (augh!) I always took good care 
 to ask them to stop, and take a chop and a glass of Madeira 
 with us at eight, saying I should so like to introduce them to 
 Lord this, and Sir William that. 
 
 Dear! dear! then how delicious it was to see them — all the 
 time they were talking so politely to me, and pretending to be 
 so much interested with what I was saying — looking so slyly 
 round the room, biting their lips with envy, and wishing to 
 goodness gracious! they could furnish their houses like ours., 
 and make me just as spitefully envious at the sight of it as 
 they themselves felt. And well, I'm sure! the poor things 
 might have been ready to eat the tips of their fingers off 
 with jealousy; for I never, never saw such a little bijou as 
 that Fuschia Villa of ours was! I declare we hadn't a grate 
 in the place that wasn't most beautifully bright. Of course 
 Ave never had a fire in any of them — unless indeed sometimes, 
 when it was bitterly cold, and I let Charley, as a great treat, 
 have a little basketful of live coals placed in the grate, as far 
 from the bright bars as possible. But one never gets any 
 thanks in this vain, empty world; for there I should have my 
 gentleman threatening to go and sit with the cook in the 
 kitchen! saying, "what with our bright hobs, bright bars, 
 and bright pokers, the Englishman's fireside now w r as about 
 as cosey as Siberia." 
 
 Oh! those loves of tables! I have them now in my mind's 
 eye! As highly polished as a coach-panel. You might have 
 smoothed your hair in any leaf of them — though to be sure 
 they were seldom seen; for, being of the very handsomest 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED 189 
 
 wood, we of course kept them covered up under Japan imi- 
 tation rosewood or mahogany covers. I declare they were a 
 great deal too good for use. If ever we had dinner on them, 
 I was obliged to have the mats several inches high for fear of 
 blistering the beautiful polish. Indeed, all dinner time, I used 
 to be in such torment lest, on the cloth being removed, I should 
 find a white ring where each plate had been, that I've over and 
 over again vowed that I would have one of the common deal 
 tables up out of the kitchen ; for with the imitation mahogany 
 cover, I was sure it would look quite as well, and nobody 
 would be able to tell the difference. 
 
 The silk damask on our sofas was so rich and of such a 
 lovely delicate yellow, that everybody said it was quite a 
 shame to sit upon it. However, we scarcely ever allowed 
 any one to do so, for we generally kept them covered up with 
 a very nice common cheap chintz; and when, on grand 
 occasions, we did take the covers off them, I used to throw 
 all over the backs and ends, the very thickest and closest 
 anti-Macassars that I could get, for really and truly I could 
 never rest easy as long as any one was lolling on them. 
 
 The chairs were the loveliest things to look at, though I 
 must confess they were the most uncomfortable to use. In 
 one corner stood what was called a "devotional," with its 
 legs as short and its back as straight and long as a weasel's, 
 so that the seat was scarcely higher than a footstool. How- 
 ever pleasant it might have been to kneel upon, I can only 
 say it was the most dreadfully uneasy thing to sit upon; for 
 there you had your knees up in your mouth, while your 
 body was as stiff and upright as a Quaker's. In another part 
 of the room was a thing without any legs at all, which they 
 called an American rocking-chair. I'm sure I never saw a 
 lady sit down in it, but I felt for her; for immediately she 
 did so — back the poor dear went, and you could see by the 
 agony of her expression, and her nervous clutch to the sides 
 of the shaky commodity, that she fancied her feet were about 
 to be thrown over her head, and she be forced to fling a sum- 
 mersault, in the presence of the whole company; and then, 
 being afraid to get out of the wriggling thing, lest it should 
 tip as far forwards with her as it had done backwards, the 
 
190 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 poor, dear, timid love would sit in it, wabbling about, until 
 she would feel downright sea-sick with the nasty motion. 
 Besides this, we had " conversationals," in which the parties 
 wishing for a cosey chat were obliged to sit back to back. 
 Then there were " recumbents," with backs as bendable as a 
 clown's, and fronts that pulled out like press bedsteads. 
 Indeed, every variety of chair was there, and positively not 
 two of them alike. 
 
 In fact, there wasn't a soul that came to our house, and 
 saw the beautifully extravagant way in which it was fur- 
 nished, that did not say what a lucky, lucky girl I was to 
 have "settled" so well, and wound up by asking me, "How- 
 ever, Charlotte, you pet! did you manage to do it?" 
 
 Dear mother — who before had always been a good mother 
 to me — no sooner found me the mistress of our little palace of 
 a cottage, than I declare her affection grew so unbounded, 
 that positively she would hardly leave me for two days 
 together. If she didn't drop in to lunch, she was sure to 
 come to dinner. "Ah!" she would say, "what a price had 
 she paid for her experience of domestic management, and 
 did her dearest boy Charles think she was the woman to 
 refuse to impart that valuable, dear-bought knowledge to 
 her own child? No! — not if she had to bring her boxes 
 and stop a whole twelvemonth with us." 
 
 But I think the most beautiful trait of all in Mamma's 
 amiable character, was her extraordinary solicitude for her 
 " own darling Charley's" health. Over and over again has 
 she, after luncheon, taken me by the hand, and with tears in 
 her eyes, said, "Charlotte, my dear pet, you are not 
 sufficiently careful of that treasure of a Charley of yours. 
 You seem to forget, my darling one, that if anything dread- 
 ful were to happen to him (which Heaven forbid!) before he 
 is twenty-one, the property would pass into other hands. 
 Ah! my words may well alarm you, my sweet lamb, but I 
 speak strongly, in order to awaken you to the value of your 
 husband's precious life, and to force him to wrap himself up 
 well whenever he goes out in this horribly variable climate 
 of ours. Then, again, you positively should not allow a 
 mere infant, like him — for such, you know, he is in the eyes 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 191 
 
 of the law — to ride those dreadfully high spirited horses he 
 does. When he has arrived at years of discretion, of course 
 be can do as he likes, but now you really should look after 
 him more than you do, and not permit him to go out upon 
 that vicious little iron-grey mare of his. Only the other day, 
 I saw the frisky thing prancing all down Oxford-street side- 
 ways. Besides you know, as well as I do, the animal has 
 such a trick of shying, that I am certain, some fine afternoon, 
 she will shy your inestimable husband into an early grave." 
 
 Alas ! little then did I think that Mamma's words were so 
 soon to come true ! 
 
 Dear Charley had very foolishly entered his iron-grey 
 for the officers' grand steeple-chase, which was to come off 
 near Canterbury. At the mess, he had backed his "Kitty" 
 to such a heavy amount, that it was no use my talking and 
 crying to him. He must ride it, come what may. Besides, 
 he said he knew he was sure to win, for there was one leap 
 which he was certain none but his Kitty could take; for Bates 
 had been practising her at it, and said she went over beauti- 
 fully. 
 
 The day before the steeple-chase was to come off, we had 
 the new landau round, and travelled in it per rail to Ashford, 
 where two pair of post horses awaited us, and we dashed 
 and rattled into Canterbury in such style, that everybody 
 looked round to see who it was. Oh, it was so beautiful! 
 Of course dear Charley was well known there, and to get a 
 nod from the rich, generous, and stylish young Mr. Dawdle, 
 was a thing to be proud of. So as we galloped up the street, 
 I declare it made one think quite well of the world, to see the 
 hats, one after another, either lifted or touched to us by 
 nearly every one we passed. 
 
 It was a most extraordinary thing, but I was as certain as 
 certain could be, that something was going to happen the 
 next morning. I hadn't had so much as a wink all night. When 
 I told Charles as much, he said, in a nasty way, he supposed 
 something would happen in the course of the day, and in- 
 sisted that I was as nervous as a stag. But I was deter- 
 mined I wouldn't give way, and told him it was not nervous- 
 ness, but that I saw a superior Power in it all. However, 
 
192 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 he only laughed at me for my fears, and said, that all he saw 
 in it was the lobster salad that I ate so much of last night; 
 adding, that he thought at the time it would make me ill. 
 
 But I knew a great deal better. Looking-glasses, I said to 
 myself, are not broken for nothing, and wasn't one of ours 
 knocked off our dressing-room table by the blind, when that 
 stupid Mary left the window open, the very day after we 
 returned from the Continent. Every lady possessing the 
 least knowledge, is well aware that it is out of the power of 
 the first physician in the land to save the life of a person 
 after that. Again, I should like to know whether, as women 
 of mind, we are to shut our eyes to the awful fact of sitting 
 down thirteen to dinner. And that we foolishly did at 
 Papa's, not a fortnight before poor Charley w r as snatched 
 from me. Though Mamma, to prevent its having any effect, 
 would insist upon Mr. Brooke dining at a side-table; still I felt 
 convinced in my own mind that it was quite useless trying 
 to turn aside the blow, and that all drugs and medicine would 
 be utterly thrown away upon one of the thirteen before the 
 year w r as out. Moreover, I should like to know what made that 
 nasty black dog of Charles's howl all the night through — and 
 that just before we started for Canterbury. It's very fine for 
 a pack of self-conceited, stuck-up men, to preach to you about 
 cause and effect, but what rubbishing facts, I ask, are more 
 settled in all their trumpery sciences, than that our dog's cries 
 were occasioned simply by his seeing Death coming to our 
 house to tear my poor dear Charley from me, before he had 
 come into his property? Besides, all I can say is, I never 
 knew a coffin jump out of the fire for nothing — that's all! 
 And as perfect a one as ever I set eyes upon efa/pop out from 
 the bars, and deposit itself down on the rug between Charley 
 and me, whilst we were at breakfast, on the very morning of 
 that hateful steeple-chase. Wiseacres may smile, and say that 
 the world is not carried on in that way, and that the events 
 of life depend upon other things than hollow bits of coals leap- 
 ing out of the fire. But don't tell me! — I saw the finger of 
 Providence in it. Papa may go on as long as he likes, de- 
 claring it is simply the caloric causing an explosion of the 
 liberated carburetted hydrogen; but all I can say is — fiddle! 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 193 
 
 It was no caloric, nor any such stuff, but a superior power, 
 warning a poor, dear, helpless woman that her fond husband 
 was about to be snatched from her, and telling liim, as 
 plainly as it could speak, to go and insure his life, so that 
 his darling wife might be comfortable when he was no more. 
 
 My Charles knew his iron grey was the only horse that 
 could take that leap, and yet how did it turn out? Yes! 
 how did it turn out, I repeat? 
 
 When he left me that morning, his spirits, though they 
 were always high, were higher than I ever remember them to 
 have been before. He wanted me to go and see the start, 
 but I told him I would have nothing to do with it. Of 
 course I was only a silly for my pains; '• and if I didn't 
 like to come without pressing, I might let it alone." 
 
 And so I did, thank Heaven ! 
 
 Over night, I fear he had taken more wine than was good 
 for him at the mess; yet before he started, he held out his 
 arm to show me, as he said, what capital cue he was in, and 
 that his hand was as steady as a finger-post; so I needn't be 
 alarmed, for he was certain to win. He had invited, too, all 
 " the lads" to dine with him; and I was to see the hotel 
 people got " an out and out" dinner ready, and to take care 
 there was plenty of curry, for the fellows liked it; and to 
 have " the prog" on table at four to a moment, for they 
 would all be precious sharpset." 
 
 About half-past three, as I was standing out in the balcony, 
 to see if I could catch a glimpse of the officers returning, 
 I observed Bates leading the iron-grey pony down the street, 
 with its knees bound up, and a dense crowd following after 
 it. All the people were talking in couples as they walked 
 along. I turned cold from head to foot, for I felt certain 
 that some dreadful accident had occurred. 
 
 Hushing down stairs into the yard, I ran up to Bates, and 
 trembling in dread of the reply that I knew was coming, I 
 stammered out, ' ; What ever has happened, Bates? Where 
 is your master?" 
 
 " He'll — a — be here, Ma'am — that is — a — Captain Pad- 
 dings, Ma'am, said he'd come on, and speak to you, and tell 
 you all about it, Ma'am." 
 
194 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " All about what — about what, Bates?" I half screamed 
 out. " I command you to tell me what it is!" 
 
 The man turned away his head, not liking to answer; 
 and I was about to repeat the command I had given him, 
 when Captain Paddings dashed into the yard. 
 
 Jumping off his horse, he advanced towards me as quickly 
 as I did towards him. 
 
 '* I wish to speak with you up stairs, Madam," he said, 
 with a tremulous voice. " I have something of great im- 
 portance to communicate to you." 
 
 " What is it? — what is it?" I cried, wringing my hands. 
 " Pray, pray let me know the worst! I can bear anything; 
 indeed, I can!" 
 
 " Up stairs, Madam," he answered, as he grew paler; " up 
 stairs, you shall know all." 
 
 He tried to lead me away, but at this moment the crowd 
 rushed in at the gates, and half filled the yard. 
 
 Then there was a cry of, " Stand back! make way — make 
 way there!" 
 
 The Captain, on hearing this, placed his arm round my 
 waist, and endeavoured to drag me along, saying half angrily, 
 " This is no place for you, Madam; you must come up stairs." 
 
 But he could not keep the sight from me; for before he 
 could drag me away, I saw turning the corner of the yard the 
 body of a man stretched at full length, and borne above the 
 heads of the crowd. 
 
 I felt it was my husband, and saw and heard no more. 
 
 ****** 
 
 As soon as I was well enough, I returned to town, deter- 
 mined that my poor dear Charles should be consigned to 
 his last home, at least with decency and comfort; — though, 
 upon my word, I hardly knew how I was to do it; for Mamma 
 took good care, immediately on my return, to open my 
 eyes to the penniless state in which Mr. Dawdle had left 
 me. However, though I might be poor, still there was no 
 need to let the world know it. So I made up my mind to 
 treat my husband's remains with all the respect I could.| 
 
 Mamma was soon with me, to arrange about the ad- 
 vertisement. This she drew out for me from a form in 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 195 
 
 that day's " Times." When I glanced over it, it struck 
 me as being so very cold and concise, and to look such a 
 mere matter of business, that I could not help saying to her, 
 I thought it would have a much better appearance to the 
 world, if she could manage to put in " universally regretted," 
 somewhere or other. 
 
 " I really don't see the good of it, my dear," replied 
 Mamma. " It's all very right, proper, and nice, when a poor 
 dear man leaves a large property behind him to pay for it. 
 Perhaps you are not aware that the newspapers always charge 
 extra for ' universally regretted/ my pet," she added; " and 
 Mr. Dawdle, you should remember, hasn't left you a six- 
 pence in the world to enable you to go to the extra expense, 
 my poor dear poppet." 
 
 " Well then," I said through my tears, " I think you might 
 shorten the first part a bit, and wind up with something about 
 ' leaving a young and disconsolate widow to lament his loss.' 
 Really, it appears to me to be only decent !" 
 
 " I can't help that, my lamb !" Mamma answered, shaking 
 her head; " had it pleased Providence to spare my poor dear 
 boy until such time as he had come into his property, then, of 
 course, you might have made your agony as long and acute 
 as you like, my afflicted angel! But when ive have to 
 pay for your grief by the line, and your sorrow actually has 
 to come out of your poor Father's pocket, why I can only say 
 you must reserve your tears for your closet, and make up 
 your mind not to give way to your grief in the columns 
 of a newspaper." 
 
 The next thing I did was to send to a " Maison de Deuil" 
 and very soon one of the most respectable and melancholy- 
 looking gentlemen waited upon me, and asked me, with a deep 
 sigh, what mourning he could have the miserable pleasure of 
 serving me with. 
 
 He was dressed in deep dead black from head to foot. His 
 jewellery was all jet, and his rings were mourning ones. 
 Scarcely any of the beaver of his hat could be seen for the 
 crape round it. Not only his expression, but his complexion 
 was clouded, for he was as bilious as he was lugubrious. 
 
 He brought with him the latest funeral fashions, so that 
 
196 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 I might grieve after the first style of sorrow. They were all 
 from Paris; indeed, he told me ladies of quality objected 
 to show the acuteuess of their feelings in any other articles, 
 and that their house had the honour of serving some of the 
 most elegant and inconsolable widows in the land. 
 
 Then drawing his beautiful clean white cambric handker- 
 chief from his pocket, he slowly unfolded and shook it, till 
 the " extrait de rosemary" with which it was scented per- 
 fumed the whole room. 
 
 With a deep sigh and dow T ncast eyes, he asked, — " Is it for 
 a deceased partner, Madam — ha-a-ah?" 
 
 " Ye-e-es," I stammered out, as I buried my face in my 
 pocket-handkerchief." 
 
 " Aa-a-h ! It must be a severe affliction, to you, Madam !" he 
 answered with another and a deeper sigh. Then turning to the 
 wicker basket covered with oilskin that the woman who ac- 
 companied him had brought with her, he continued, — "Will 
 you allow me to show you some caps? We have some here 
 that I think would become the classic style of your counte- 
 nance extremely well." 
 
 "Indeed!" I exclaimed, suddenly withdrawing my hand- 
 kerchief from my eyes, to look at the two the man had taken 
 .out. "Ha-a-ah!" I continued, taking the best looking, and 
 .shaking my poor head, — " alas! alas! little did I think that I 
 should come to this. This certainly is very light and pretty, 
 .and full of woe." 
 
 "Just so, Madam," he replied, with a sorrowful bow. 
 "Lady Crummy, who has just buried her fourth husband, 
 wears nothing else, I can assure you, Ma'am. Only last 
 week, we had the hagony of serving her with another." 
 
 "Poor dear sufferer! I can imagine her feelings as much as 
 I admire her taste," I answered. " And what might be the 
 price of the article?" I asked, turning my head away to hide 
 my feelings, for it was as much as I could do to prevent 
 making a silly of myself before the man. 
 
 "Do not give way, I beg of you, Madam," he stammered 
 out from behind his pocket-handkerchief, as he blew his nose 
 till he made the room ring again. " We can let you have that 
 .as low as five-and-twenty — or, in the present state of your 
 feelings, we will say one guinea." 
 
fcUub^ 
 
 ^M*s 
 
 'yd (i?(Z/7/. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 197 
 
 " Dear, dear, how very, very cheap !" I replied, startled 
 at the high price; "but I think it is a little too gay for me 
 just now. I should like to see something lower. Have 
 you any in book muslin?" 
 
 "Book muslin!" exclaimed the man, horror-stricken; "no* 
 widow of fashion ever mourns in book muslin now, Madam. 
 Kelicts in the upper circles never grieve for their dear deceased 
 partners in anything under crepe lisse, or tarlatan, I can 
 assure you. We could make you one; but I am satisfied a 
 person of your standing, Madam, would as soon think of 
 wearing sackcloth and ashes." 
 
 "Alas!" I exclaimed, "I am not versed in these matters. 
 This is only my first bereavement. Will you let me see 
 the other cap, if you please!" 
 
 "Certainly, Madam," he replied; "I think you will find 
 it exactly to your sorrow It is the latest we have had from 
 France. Ladies of ' ton ' like the Parisian style of grief 
 much better than ours. It looks much more poignant and 
 tasty, while, at the same time, it is of a much lighter quality, 
 and as cool again for the head. Now, this style of cap i& 
 extremely popular among the ladies of the ' beau-monde' in 
 • la belle France ' for an affectionate and deeply-lamented 
 husband. It is called ' Le petit bonnet Lafarge.'' We can 
 let you have it a bargain, Madam. Would you like to try it 
 on? I am satisfied you would look positively ' ravissante 1 in, 
 that there one." 
 
 I went towards the glass to see how I did look; and when 
 I caught sight of myself in my weeds, it was too much for me, 
 and I burst out crying, as I said, " I think it would look 
 better if the ' ruche ' was a little fuller." 
 
 The poor man seeing my distress, passed his knuckles 
 sharply over his eye, and said in a voice apparently choked 
 with emotion, " Once more, let me beg of you, Madam, not tc* 
 give way to this bitter hagony of soul. That we can let 
 you have as low as — twelve and six." 
 
 " I will take that one," I said, rousing myself on hearing 
 the low price. " Now I should like to look at some dresses." 
 
 " Certainly, Ma'am. Evening or morning sorrow shall I 
 have the misery of showing you?" he answered, again going 
 to the wicker basket, and unfolding a large brown paper 
 
198 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 parcel. " Here is an exquisite article for full evening grief, 
 Madam. It is an imitation lute-string silk, though, with a senti- 
 ment that I'm sure you will admire, we call it the widow's 
 heart-string. You see it is remarkably strong and elastic — 
 indeed, it is warranted to stretch, but not to crack. Then, 
 again, if it loses any of its brilliance and beauty, I can assure 
 you a little drop of spirits, or even beer, will brighten it up, 
 and restore the colour wonderfully." 
 
 " I suppose I must have a dress of it, then," I replied. 
 " How many yards will it take?" 
 
 " You would have the body low, as it is for evening sor- 
 row, of course, Ma'am?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes," I replied, " nice and low, if you please; and I should 
 prefer the skirt very full and rich." 
 
 " Certainly, Ma'am," he answered, bowing; " that is quite 
 the approved style for widows. I can assure you we are 
 putting in as many as eleven breadths. Lady Crummy took 
 twelve, but then she likes her grief made up to look as deep 
 and full as possible. Perhaps, Madam, you would not like 
 to venture so far — at first?" 
 
 " No, I thank you, eleven will do. How much is it per 
 yard?" 
 
 " I can assure you, Madam, we are now selling this as low 
 as seven and six — our object being to alleviate rather than 
 profit by the widow's sorrows." 
 
 " I think seven shillings would be quite sufficient," I re- 
 plied, putting my handkerchief to my eyes, and burying my 
 face in it. 
 
 " Well, Madam," he answered, turning his face aside to 
 hide his emotion, " it would ill-become me, under your pre- 
 sent feelings, to debate with you about a sixpence. So we 
 will say seven." Then in a bland voice, and leaning over 
 the table, he continued, " Perhaps it would be too much for 
 you to talk about a dress for the morning at present. I am 
 afraid I have distressed you more than you can bear already, 
 my dear Madam," he added, with an excess of sympathy, 
 and a soft, dove-like expression about his eyes as he looked 
 at me, that I didn't half like. 
 
 " No! go on," I said, " I can bear anything now. I should 
 like to look at your bombazeen, if you please." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 199 
 
 " Bonibazeen !" he replied, throwing up his eyebrows, 
 " we don't sell much of that now, Ma'am. It splits very 
 much, and does not last long. Besides, widows like their 
 mourning to appear as durable as possible. Now paramatta 
 is much more the vogue. Here is one, Madam, that you 
 will find extremely serviceable. In fact, I can assure you, 
 it will last a lady for two or three widowhoods at least — and 
 so, indeed, many of our best customers have made it." 
 
 " That will do — that will do," I cried, quite overcome by 
 my feelings. " Anything, so long as it is rich and cheap." 
 
 " Thank you, Madam," the young man replied, with in- 
 teresting sympathy — "thank you; I can well understand your 
 distress. This bereavement must have been a sad, sad blow 
 to you. But I hope and trust there is no children." 
 
 " No, thank Heaven!" I replied. 
 
 " That is a great mercy!" he continued. " Only we have 
 some very charming and distingue articles for young ladies' 
 and gentlemen's mourning, which I'm sure you would have 
 liked very much; and we could sell them just now at a re- 
 markably low figure — indeed, considerably under prime cost." 
 
 "Ha-a-ah!" was all I could say in answer. 
 
 "I suppose you would wish the servants to mourn, Madam?" 
 he asked, as soon as he saw I was a little more composed." 
 
 " Yes, of course," I replied. " How deep is it usual for 
 them to wear it?" 
 
 " Knee deep in crape, Ma'am, for excessive sorrow, if you 
 please." 
 
 " And in what material do you usually make it?" I asked. 
 
 " We have a very good, stout, lasting, and cheap English 
 merino here," he replied, taking out another brown paper 
 parcel, " which we call ( le respect des pauvres.' We have 
 it manufactured expressly for the grief or sympathy of 
 the lower orders. I think you will find it a very good and 
 genteel-looking article, Madam." 
 
 After I had arranged with him about everything neces- 
 sary, he was preparing to depart, when he drew from his 
 basket another packet, and gracefully advancing towards me, 
 said in a bland voice, " As Providence has kindly ordained, 
 Madam, that grief should not last for ever, perhaps you will 
 be kind enough to think of our house, when the period of 
 
200 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 half-mourning arrives. Now, here is a remarkably andsome, 
 chaste, and poetical harticle, quite new from Paris, Ma'am. 
 We only received it last week, and but two dresses of it 
 have been sold as yet in London. In France they call it 
 ' La Kiobe,' and perhaps you will notice that the light spots 
 on the dark ground, are meant — by a sweet idea, worthy of 
 our inimitable neighbours — to give one the notion of the 
 dress having been stained by tears." 
 
 Waving it from me, I told the man, as well as I could, 
 that it was sweetly pretty, and pleased me so much, that 
 when my sorrow was subdued a little, I would certainly think 
 of their establishment. 
 
 In the excess of his gratitude, the man, bowing, wiped his 
 shoes several times on my new carpet. At last, having again 
 packed up all his goods, he came towards me with a brown 
 paper parcel under his arm, and drawing a card from his 
 waistcoat pocket, with a bland smile, placed it in my hand, 
 saying — 
 
 " Will you allow me, Madam, to present you with a card 
 of our wedding establishment, at the sign of "La belle 
 trousseau" Our nuptial assortment is one of the most exten- 
 sive and chaste in London; and the assistants, both male and 
 female, are all clad in bridal garments — the ladies in book 
 muslin with orange flowers, the gentlemen in blue coats, buff 
 waistcoats, and white trousers. Any lady who may honour 
 ns with her patronage, may rely upon having her orders exe- 
 cuted with the greatest punctuality and dispatch. The shop, 
 Madam, is next door to our mourning establishment, at the 
 sign, as you are aware, of ' Le crocodile oVorJ " 
 
 Scarcely had I given the orders for the mourning, than I 
 was called upon to make the necessary arrangements for the 
 funeral with the undertaker. Much as I am shocked now at 
 the recollection of the venal and tricky sympathy of the 
 gentleman from the " maison de deuil" still, the coarse and 
 less artful, and thoroughly business-like commiseration of 
 the undertaker even then disgusted rather than soothed me. 
 Scarcely a word of pity fell from his lips, but the sentence 
 was finished with a request for another item to his bill. 
 While to give me the idea that he came to console and assist 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 201 
 
 the living, rather than get his cent, per cent, out of the 
 dead, he would lard his condolence with passages from the 
 most impressive of all our services; till, instead of consoling, 
 they horrified me. I fancied that, perhaps, only the day 
 before, he had used the same set phrases to some other 
 sister in sorrow, and I felt, as he whined them out, that 
 they were the stock sentiments and clap-trap religion belong- 
 ing to his trade. 
 
 The man stole noiselessly into the dark room, shut the door 
 with extreme care and gentleness after him, and then stood re- 
 spectfully near it, rubbing his old crinkled black gloves. 
 Though his eyes were apparently cast upon the ground, I 
 could see him looking askant all about the room, to observe 
 in what style it was furnished, and whether his bill was safe. 
 And afterwards, in his conversation, he would endeavour to 
 " cant" out of me, whether my husband had died worth money 
 or not. 
 
 When I had informed him of the melancholy cause of my 
 sending for him, he threw up his eyebrows, and drawing in 
 his breath between his teeth, as if in pain, said, with a look 
 of extreme agony, "Dear, dear, dear me! — this is a sad, 
 sad business, Marm. Poor dear departed ! — you would like 
 to have him handsomely interred, of course, Marm?" 
 
 " Yes," I sobbed out, " of course, handsomely." 
 
 " Certainly !" he continued; " I understand, Marm; it's a 
 sad, sad thing to be cut off in one's prime. Man cometh up 
 — you know, Marm — and is cut down like a flower, Marm I 
 Our poor, dear brother," — and as I stared at him, he added, 
 " that is, as we say at Kensal-green, Marm — was very much 
 respected, I hear. You'll require a large number of hatbands 
 and gloves, I suppose ?" 
 
 " I cannot say just now," I replied. " I've no doubt I 
 shall; but at present " 
 
 " Of course. I understand, Marm," he continued. " It's 
 very natural in the present distracted state on your 
 feelings. But you shouldn't take on so, Marm — indeed, 
 you shouldn't; for you know, in the midst of life we are 
 in death, Marm. I hope our dear departed brother had 
 insured his, Marm ?" 
 
 p 
 
202 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 I made no reply to the man's impertinent curiosity; and 
 he continued — 
 
 " For as I always says, as long as the dear relict and the 
 blessed babes is comfortably provided for, why the agony of 
 the visitation is uncommon softened. For though, you know, 
 Marin, money is the root of all evil, still, as we say at the 
 Green, it's particular pleasant to have a few cuttings of the 
 plant left to comfort a poor body in the hour of woe. Besides, 
 it's been very beautifully ordained, that — whether it's peasant 
 or king — a body must leave his property behind him, Marm. 
 You know we brought nothing into this world, and we can't 
 take nothing out of it, Marm!" 
 
 I merely said, " Yes, very true, certainly," in reply, and 
 Mr. Crowe proceeded. 
 
 " Yes, Marm, you see there's no doubt whatever is, is 
 right. And when a poor, dear relict is left very comfortable, 
 it does strike me to be her bounden duty to see that the poor, 
 dear departed is carried to his last home with every mark of 
 honour and respect heaped upon him, Marm. Of course 
 you'd like to have feathers, Marm ? they says so much for 
 the poor, dear deceased, you know. I'm sure I never sees 
 feathers but what I always says, there goes a tender husband 
 and an affectionate father!" 
 
 " Yes," I answered, disgusted with the man's artifice. 
 
 "Thank you, Marm!" he replied. "The poor dear de- 
 parted had a large circle of friends, I believe, Marm. They 
 tells me that no one could know the gentleman without 
 loving on him; so, in course, there'll be a good many as 
 would like to follow him, as a last mark of respect, 
 Marm. You'll want a good many mourning coaches, 
 wont you, Marm? And with a gentleman whose con- 
 nexions laid all among the first people of the land as 
 his did, I really don't think we could with any decency 
 do with less than four horses to each on them, and, in course, 
 six to the hearse." 
 
 " Surely we could do with less than that," I said, half 
 frightened — intent as even I was upon disguising my situation 
 to the world — at the expense the man was endeavouring to 
 lead me into. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 203 
 
 " Oh dear — dear me! No! no! no! You'd never forgive 
 yourself — I know you wouldn't, Marm — when you came to 
 think it was the last thing as a fond relict could bestow 
 on a poor clear departed. Besides, what would the world say 
 at a lady in your walk of life, Marm, having nothing but two- 
 horse coaches, as if the deceased were a common tradesman 
 going to his last resting-place?" 
 
 This was such a dexterous thrust at my vanity, that I soon 
 fancied myself convinced that I should be wanting in proper 
 feeling if I did not make the ghastly display the man had 
 proposed; so I told him to do what he thought our position 
 in the world might require. 
 
 "Yes, Marm, certainly! You only leave it all to me, 
 Marm, and I'll take care that the dear departed shall have as 
 handsome and respectable a thing as any man in London 
 could turn you out, Marm. You shall have the use of our 
 very best pall and horse-trappings — they've only been out 
 twice, Marm, and were made for the funeral of Lord Car- 
 thamus. I give my word, Marm, I gave no less than eighteen 
 shillings a yard for every inch of the velvet. This here 
 waistcoat's made out of a piece of the very stuff!" 
 
 " Yes, there — .that'll do — anything you like," I said, wish- 
 ing to get rid of the man. 
 
 '•'Certainly, certainly; and if you hasn't made up your 
 mind as to the ground where the poor dear gentleman is to 
 lie, I should like to recommend you either Kensal or High- 
 gate, Marm. Highgate certainly is drier; but then, the 
 Green, you know, is so much more select; and maybe you 
 might feel hurt at the idea of the poor gentleman lying 
 alongside of some common man as had to work for his living, 
 you know, Marm — and that there might be the case at 
 Highgate; though, to be sure, it's getting more the rage of 
 late, and — let me see — yes! I think we had as much as ten 
 per cent, last dividend. And what's more, now I come to 
 think on it, I knows of a very nice, snug, dry vault to be dis- 
 posed on cheap there. And perhaps it might be a consolation 
 for yer to know that when your time was come to be cut 
 down like a flower, Marm — for we've all on us but a short 
 time to live, and is full of misery, you know, — that you've 
 
 p2 
 
204 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 got a nice comfortable place already provided for you beside 
 your first — that is, I should say — your poor dear husband. 
 However, I'm distressing on yer by what I'm a saying, — but 
 I hopes you will take it all in the way it's meant, and 
 that's kindly, I give you my word, Marm. Everybody as 
 knows John Crowe, will tell you the very same thing, and 
 that it ain't in him to take advantage of the relict and the 
 orphan. However, I think you said you'd have feathers and 
 six horses — though I hope you understands, Marm, it's all the 
 same to me whether you has 'em or not; for I don't make 
 a penny by it; and that for the matter of what I shall get 
 by it, Shillibeer might have the job." 
 
 At last, thank goodness, the man left me; but the next day, 
 to my horror, I received the first intimation of what was in 
 store for me; for, with the morning's earliest post, the following 
 scrawl was handed to me. It was from the obsequious Under- 
 taker, inclosed in a greasy envelope, edged with deep black, 
 and sealed with a coffin nail. The cautious man had been 
 making inquiries in the neighbourhood, and finding that his 
 bill was not quite so secure as he could wish, had thought it 
 better to decline " the honour of my custom" in this curious 
 jumble: — 
 
 " John Crowe present respects to Mrs. Captain Dawdle, 
 and beg to inform her that, owing to having to meet a Heavy 
 bill in the Course of next month, i regret i shall Be obliged 
 to Decline Executing the orders you was so good as to honour 
 me with, unless Mrs. Captain D. can favour J. C. with the 
 name of Some party who would be Answerable for the 
 Amount, which, on going over the different items, i find will 
 Come heavy, specially as J. C. always Makes it a rule never 
 to take legal proceedings against the Widow and the Orphan, 
 my Business being for ready Money Only. — Waiting your 
 further favours, i have the honour to remain, Madam, your 
 obedient, humble Servant to Command, 
 
 "John Crowe. 
 
 " N.B. — We are now taking oft Twenty-five per cent. Dis- 
 count for ready Money only. Weekly payments taken." 
 
 But Mr. Crowe was not the only one who had made him- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 205 
 
 self acquainted with the penniless state in which my husband's 
 sudden death had placed me. His polite note was soon 
 followed by a host of similar ones from all our different trades- 
 men, who were sorry to intrude upon me at such a moment; 
 but having (like Mr. Crowe) a heavy bill to meet in a few days, 
 they were obliged to request immediate payment of their 
 accounts. In fact, scarcely a knock came to the door, but 
 what it was either a letter, or a visit in person, from some 
 fresh creditors, who, having trusted Mr. Dawdle to a large 
 amount, until he should come into his property, had heard of 
 his death while he was yet in his minority, and had hurried 
 up in their alarm to the house, to see what they could pick up 
 from the wreck. 
 
 Some, more bold and unfeeling than the rest, would insist 
 on speaking to me. On being told I could see no one, they 
 would force themselves into my presence, and revile my dead 
 husband to my face, while his remains were still in the 
 house; calling the place a "nest of swindlers," and vowing, 
 with oaths, " they wouldn't stand still and be robbed of their 
 money as they had been — no! not if they had to sell the bed 
 from under me!" 
 
 All this nearly drove me mad. I didn't dare to send to- 
 my father, and be the first to tell him that a worse evil than 
 even he had foreseen in my marriage, had fallen so soon upon 
 his child. Then, again, I shuddered as I feared that my ruined 
 credit would deprive me of the means of burying my poor 
 husband without papa's aid. At last, after turning and turning- 
 over in my mind all the different schemes that presented 
 themselves to me, one after another, I determined on dis- 
 posing of the whole of the plate we had in the house, together 
 with whatever jewels I possessed, in order to pay my last 
 act of duty to poor Charles. 
 
 Scarcely, however, had I made up my mind to do so, when, 
 to my horror, an " execution"' was put into the house by one 
 of the many parties who had advanced money to my husband, 
 at exorbitant rates of interest, and secured themselves by 
 means of what I believe is called a "warrant of attorney;'* 
 on which, hearing of my loss, they had entered up "judg- 
 ment," as the man told me. 
 
206 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 This, of course, swept all hope and all means from me. 
 However, one stone remained unturned. I had not as yet 
 applied to my father's upholsterer. I thought I knew enough 
 of the man to be satisfied that he would not refuse to trust 
 me. Papa had dealt with him since he had first settled in 
 life; and I remembered him ever since I had been a child. 
 As anything was better than applying to my father, I at once 
 determined on sending for Mr. Cawthorne. 
 
 Hastily scribbling a note, I despatched it to him. Then I 
 began to fear lest, if he saw the man in possession below, he 
 too might refuse to help me. 
 
 That evening, when I heard his single knock at the door, 
 I could not help trembling for my fate. I stole out on to the 
 landing and peeped over the bannisters, to assure myself that 
 the Jew was safe down stairs, For in the dread of my 
 circumstances being discovered, I felt convinced no one 
 could see the man without knowing who and what he was. 
 But from the smell of tobacco that filled the house, I was 
 certain the fellow was smoking as usual in the parlour. 
 Thank heaven, though, the door was shut! and as I looked 
 over into the hall, there was old Mr. Cawthorne in the pas- 
 sage, wiping his bald head before he came up stairs. 
 
 After he had entered the room, it was as much as I 
 could do to extract from him the answer I so much de- 
 sired. For he ivould keep contrasting my present widowed 
 state with that of my past childhood. One moment he was 
 condoling with me on my unhappy loss; and the next, 
 babbling of the time when he first knew my father, and I 
 was a little thing that could hardly " toddle." Scarcely had he 
 told me " he was very sorry to hear on the sad business, and 
 that his Missus had read it to him on the paper last Sunday; 
 and, as she had said at the time, she were quite cut up, for I 
 had always been an uncommon fav'rite of hers" — than he 
 began throwing up his hands, and shaking his head, as he 
 said, " he had known me ever since I was scarcely higher 
 than his two-foot rule, and it was he as had made the high 
 baby chair for me to sit at table with. More than that, he 
 had furnished my father's house, just after he was married, 
 when it wasn't quite such a grand place as it was now, he 
 could tell me. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 207 
 
 "Ah, Miss! — that is, Mum, I mean" — he added, with a 
 deep sigh — " I little thought then as how things would ever 
 have come to this, or that I should live to see those little 
 rosy cheeks of yours inlaid in a widow's cap! Hah! no more 
 did your old father, I'll be bound! and there isn't a man in 
 the whole parish as I respects so much as he, for what I calls 
 a real honest, upright, and downright old English gentleman, 
 and that's just what Mr. De Roos is — and I don't mind who 
 hears me say it! I never lost a penny by him, and I've 
 yearned many a pound of his in my time. And I will say 
 this, my money has always been just as safe with him as if it 
 had been in my own pocket — and much safer too, for the 
 matter of that," 
 
 I took advantage of the first pause to tell him I wished 
 him to conduct the funeral of my late husband; but that — 
 a — that — a — I should be unable — a — at least until my af- 
 afairs were settled — to — a — and as I hesitated and stam- 
 mered over the sentence, Mr. Cawthorne suddenly became 
 thoughtful and stroked his chin, and said, " Hem," as if he 
 was turning my proposition for credit over in his mind. 
 
 " Yes !" at length he exclaimed, again shaking his head, 
 " it's an awkward business, and I've no doubt it's left you 
 anything but comfortable." Then, as if to avoid the ques- 
 tion, he continued, while I sat listening to him in an agony 
 of suspense, yet fearing to seem too anxious for his reply, — 
 " Dear ! dear me, too ! and it seems but yesterday — and yet it 
 must be — let me see — yes, it was just about the time when I 
 made them Pembrokes for your father — and that's eighteen 
 year ago, if it's an hour — when you used to come running 
 into the drawing-room, and a stealing all my tacks while I 
 was a-putting up the curtains — and very handsome curtains 
 they was, to be sure — and a-running off with my hammer 
 directly I put it out of my hand, to fasten the handles on 
 your wooden swords, as you and little Master James, as died, 
 wanted to act the play with. I suppose you don't recollect 
 the little mahogany doll's bedstead, with furniture and bed- 
 ding complete, as I gave you on your birth-day, Miss?" he 
 asked, half smiling at the recollection. 
 
 "Yes! yes! I recollect it perfectly. But — a — a — " I 
 answered, trying to bring him back to the subject, and yet 
 
208 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 feeling nearly certain, by his strange digressions from the 
 object of his visit, that he wished, yet didn't like, to refuse me. 
 
 " Bless my heart ! if any one had told me at the time as I 
 gave you that doll's bedstead, that this was a-going to happen, 
 I'm sure I wouldn't have believed it — no, not if I had dreamt 
 it three times," he continued, without answering my question. 
 " Howsumdever, I a'n't the same man myself now, Miss, as 
 I was then, and I'm sure I couldn't make them finikin articles 
 at present. You see my eyes don't serve me now as they used. 
 When I was a young man, there warn't a journeyman in the 
 trade as could come a-nigh me for fancy-work. Now, there 
 was a work-table as I made afore I was out of my time — my 
 old woman's got it, and wouldn't part with it for love or 
 money I know — well, that table, I mean to say, can't be 
 matched in the kingdom for good fancy-work. It's all inlaid 
 with different coloured woods, like flowers, you see — Par- 
 quetry work, you know, Miss — that is, Marm, I should say 
 again, asking your pardon." 
 
 " But," I said, " you have forgotten to answer my first 
 question, and to tell me whether you would have any objec- 
 tion to conduct the funeral of my lamented husband?" 
 
 " Any objection!" he answered, surprised; "why, haven't 
 I know'd your father, when he lived at Somers-town, and 
 was plain Mr. De Roos, with a red-and-blue lamp outside the 
 door, and a little kind of pothecary shop, which they used 
 to call the surgery, round the corner. And didn't he bring 
 into the world my eldest boy, Ed'ard, as will be out of his 
 time next year come Michaelmas — and a fine strapping youth 
 he is, though I says it. And do you think, Marm, I'd be 
 after refusing to trust your father, or any of his family? 
 No; I only wish as either him or his'n owed me a thousand 
 pounds, that's all." 
 
 I was about to explain to him, as I had before stated, that 
 it would be out of my power to discharge his bill for some 
 considerable time, when he interrupted me, saying, — 
 
 " There, Marm, don't let's have another word. I know all 
 about it, and will do everything as lies in my power. So if 
 you'll only leave the business to me, I'll take care the per- 
 cession shan't be no disgrace either to you or the family." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 209 
 
 I burst into tears as I heard the words come from his lips. 
 I could have thrown myself at the good old man's feet, for 
 the weight he had removed from my heart. 
 
 " There now, come, Miss Charlotte — for I forgets your 
 other name — there now, don't take on so in this way," he 
 said, trying to console me. " I know it has been a sad, sad 
 blow to you, and I dare say it goes nigh to break your heart, 
 first to lose your husband, and then to have all this fine fur- 
 nitur' and things — which seems to be uncommon well put 
 together, to be sure — taken from you. But if so be as there 
 is anything as you has a fancy for — either your piany — or 
 your Devenport, may be — or your wardrobe even — why only 
 you just let me know the day afore the sale comes on," — (and 
 the words grated on my ear as he spoke them) — " and I'll 
 buy them in for you." 
 
 The expression of the thanks I could hardly find words to 
 utter, was interrupted by the sudden stopping of a carriage 
 opposite the door. As soon as Mr. Cawthorne had quitted 
 the room, I went to the shutter, and cautiously opened it a 
 little way to see who it was, wondering to myself which of 
 our fashionable friends it could be, that had at length con- 
 trived to visit me in my affliction. 
 
 I didn't remember having seen the carriage before; and I 
 was only in time enough to catch sight of a lady in black as 
 she hurried across the pavement to the door. The shutter 
 was still in my hand when the servant announced my sister 
 Fanny—" Mrs. Brooke." 
 
 No sooner did I hear the name, than I felt the spirit of my 
 pride come over me again, numbing all the generous feelings 
 of my nature. I would rather have faced my husband's bit- 
 terest creditor than my own sister. Of late years I had for 
 ever been struggling to distance her, and yet — strive as I 
 might — she somehow, in the end, had managed to get before 
 me in the world. 
 
 Only a few weeks back I had gloried in my fancied triumph. 
 In the lottery of life I seemed to have drawn a rich prize 
 and she almost a blank. We were both married on the same 
 day, and while I appeared to have a Hie of ease and affluence 
 before me, Fanny's comforts seemed to be limited to a bare 
 
210 WHOM TO MAERY 
 
 sufficiency, and her days doomed to one perpetual struggle 
 " to make both ends meet." 
 
 Besides, in the flush of my prosperity, I had rather avoided 
 than sought her society. If she had come to see me, it was 
 true 1 was pleased, but then it was because I could let her 
 see how much grander my house was than her own. When- 
 ever I was forced, for the look of the thing, to return her 
 visit, I had always delighted in running over to her all my 
 grand acquaintances, and to make her feel how much I was 
 her superior. 
 
 And now to have her calling upon me in the very depths 
 of my distress — especially when I felt it was merely her know- 
 ledge of that distress that had brought her to me — to have 
 her coming to offer me a helping hand, was more than I could 
 bear. I knew the very chair I proffered her Avas about to 
 be taken from me, and yet there was she, coming in the 
 Brougham they had just been able to start, to offer me — as I 
 felt convinced she had — an asylum under her husband's roof. 
 
 She was dressed in deep mourning; and no sooner did she 
 see me than the tears started to her eyes, and we both sat 
 silent, not even liking to look at each other. 
 
 " Charlotte," she at length began, " I have come to know 
 whether I can be of any assistance in these bitter, bitter trials 
 of yours." 
 
 I bit my lips as I heard her proffer the annoying kindness. 
 Though from the moment she had entered the room I had 
 expected it, still I was hardly prepared for it. 
 
 " Thank you, Mrs. Brooke," I answered, with a stiff bow, 
 "I'm sure I am very very much obliged to you; but as yet 
 there is no necessity, I am glad to say, of my becoming a 
 pensioner upon the bounty of yourself and Mr. Brooke." 
 
 " Come, come, Charlotte," she replied, taking my hand, 
 " this is not the time for any silly pride. You have for many 
 years past misunderstood me. But you must not and shall 
 not do so any longer. I know all, dear Lotty, and believe 
 me, from my soul, I pity you, poor girl." 
 
 " Of course," I said, as pointedly as I could, " of course 
 you pity me, and no doubt are very happy to have an oppor- 
 tunity of pitying me." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 211 
 
 " This is ungenerous of you, Lotty," she replied. " I came 
 here in good feeling to you, and I am determined you shall 
 not receive me in any other spirit. We are now, thanks to 
 Papa's influence, getting on in the world, faster, I'm sure, 
 than we could ever have expected; and I have talked the 
 matter over with Alfred, and he has sent me here to beg of 
 you to come and make your home with us; and you know 
 we might be so happy together." 
 
 " Never!" I said inwardly to myself; " not if I have to go 
 from door to door, and beg for my living." Then, turning 
 round to her, I said, with bitter gratitude, " I'm sure Tm ex- 
 ceeding indebted to Mr. Brooke for his generous considera- 
 tion; but I think it would have been more delicate in my 
 sister's husband, if that gentleman had not been quite so 
 anxious to believe he had a pauper for a sister-in-law." 
 
 " Mr. Brooke, Charlotte," replied Fanny, colouring as she 
 spoke, " believes — and indeed knows — his sister-in-law to be 
 in distress; and he has had the delicacy to send me to offer 
 you the sympathy and assistance that he feared might come 
 roughly from him." Then rising, she placed her arm round 
 my neck, and as she kissed me, said, " Come, Lotty, Lotty, 
 why let this pride stand between you and your best friends?" 
 
 " Best friends ! 'Best friends, indeed!" I returned, as I 
 cried with rage. "Don't tell me, Ma'am; if I had no better 
 friends than you in the world, I should be badly off indeed! 
 Don't tell me! Pretty frien d s, indeed! Ha! ha! friends! 
 when you know you only came here to glory over my downfall, 
 and to boast about your getting on so well in the world, at a 
 time when you knew I had been deprived of everything." 
 
 " Sister! sister!" she said, frightened at the vehemence of 
 my manner, " you know I didn't come for that." 
 
 " You did — you did!" I almost screamed; " you know in 
 your own heart you did ! You came to me in the arrogance of 
 your success — under the subterfuge of offering me your home 
 — to let me know that mine was about to be taken from me. 
 Or else why did you come in your new carriage? Why — 
 answer me — why?" 
 
 " If I had thought of it for one moment, Charlotte," she 
 replied, " knowing the pride of your nature, I would have 
 
212 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 walked, rather than have hazarded these angry feelings at a 
 moment like this. Again, as Heaven is my judge, sister, I 
 came here in perfect faith and sympathy, to act — as I always 
 have been — your sincer est friend. Will you now, after this, 
 receive me as your meanest enemy V 
 
 I was so stung with poor Fanny's unalterable kindness, 
 that seeing I could not offend her, I only grew more savage, 
 and intent upon saying cruel and unjust things to her. 
 
 All I had gone through was light to this trial, for I 
 would not give in to her, even though I felt that if she did 
 not go soon, I might perhaps have the bailiff's man growing 
 suspicious, and introducing himself into the room, as he had 
 done over and over again before. 
 
 At last, thank goodness, Fanny rose to depart. Taking 
 my hand in hers, she told me, as she wept, " She wished 
 she had never come ; for then she would have loved me more, 
 though she should have hated herself for it." 
 
 As soon as she was gone, I lost all command over myself. 
 The excitement my pride had produced was now followed by 
 a corresponding amount of depression. I burst out crying. 
 As my tears relieved and sobered me, I began to think I 
 might have wronged my sister, in attributing the mean mo- 
 tives I had to her visit. I called to mind the frankness of 
 her manner, and the many efforts she had made to turn aside 
 my suspicions and my anger. 
 
 First, I thought of going after Fanny, and asking her for- 
 giveness. But her husband, most likely, would be at the 
 house, and whatever my feelings might be towards her, still 
 there was no need to humble myself before him. Then I 
 determined on sending a servant after her, saying I wished 
 to speak with her; and when Fanny came back, and we were 
 all alone, I would throw myself on her neck, and ask her 
 pardon. Still, even then, I felt convinced the words w T ould 
 never leave my tongue, and the first unkind syllable she 
 might utter, would be sure again to fire me, and perhaps 
 make matters even worse than they were now. 
 
 Besides, I could not bring myself to acknowledge, in the 
 presence of my younger sister, that I had done her wrong. 
 So the best way, I said to myself, would be to write a letter. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 213 
 
 There I could be calm and collected. I could weigh over 
 each separate sentence before I committed myself. Then, 
 too, I could say just as much as would conciliate her with- 
 out degrading myself. 
 
 But when I came to write, and my feelings got each mo- 
 ment more and more cool, every line seemed to be too peni- 
 tent and crouching, as I read it over carefully after I had 
 written it. Copy after copy I tore up, in the hauteur of my 
 pride; until at length, finding I could not confess my error 
 without (as I foolishly imagined) lowering my own dignity, 
 I pushed the paper from me, saying to myself, " Well, 
 perhaps it will be all for the better if I don't write at all. 
 I dare say I sha'n't die of starvation for want of Miss Fanny's 
 trumpery assistance. 
 
 Then as I sat still, biting the end of my pen with vexa- 
 tion, I could not help thinking to myself how Fanny had 
 always — let me struggle as I would — got the better of me. 
 How she, without an effort, had succeeded; while I, despite 
 of all my continual efforts, had failed. And so I went on, 
 giving full play to all my bitter envy, till the ungenerous 
 thoughts came bubbling up so thick and fast in my heated 
 brain, that I got to look upon her very virtues as vices; and 
 because I lacked the courage and generosity to do towards 
 her what, but a few moments back, I felt it was my duty to 
 do, I got to hate her more and more, and to convince myself 
 I was the injured party, and she had never done her duty 
 to me. 
 
 I'd done with her, and would sooner die of want, than 
 accept the hated charity she offered. 
 
 Thus I went on, nursing my spleen. Was it to be won- 
 dered at, then, that what with the crowd of my misfortunes — 
 the bitterness of my disappointments — the suddenness of my 
 bereavement — my quarrel with my sister — the revilings of 
 my husband's creditors — and the struggle I had had even to 
 get him decently buried — all had made me so wretched, and 
 had so depressed my mind, that now the violence of my dif- 
 ferent emotions had subsided, I felt embittered and churlish, 
 while all life appeared to me to be but one long, weary march 
 of sorrow to the grave. There was not a bright spot for me 
 
214 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 in the world; and I got to love the darkness in which I had 
 wept away so many days. What others thought most beau- 
 tiful, I, in the distemper of my melancholy, had got to look 
 upon as mere tinsel and frippery. The noblest acts of virtue 
 I reduced into calculating selfishness. Each book I opened 
 to divert my mind, and to try and get some little solace from, 
 seemed to me to be but the merest sentimentality — the words 
 of passion without the feeling. If any one sought to comfort 
 me in my distress, I felt certain the expression of their 
 sympathy was mere lip-labour, and that instead of pitying me, 
 they were in their hearts all glorying in my downfall. 
 
 When the day for the interment of poor Charles' remains 
 arrived, I saw in the whole ceremony a mockery, and such 
 a mere transparent varnish of sorrow, that even I — loving 
 all outward show and pomp as I did — could not help thinking 
 what a dismal masquerade I had " got up" for the world to 
 stare at, and to wonder how I could have cajoled myself into 
 the belief that all this gloomy foppery of woe in which the 
 living tricked out the dead, was prompted by their love and 
 respect for the " dear departed," rather than by their love and 
 respect for their own worldly reputation. 
 
 While I sat up stairs in my bed-room, listening to the car- 
 riages arriving one after another, I could hear the hum of the 
 boys and the women in crowd collected round the house to see 
 the procession start. I fancied, too, I could distinguish in 
 the drawing-room below me the voice of my husband's cousin 
 — the chief mourner — for it was he who had come into the 
 property, and having been raised from a bare competence to 
 princely affluence, he was to be the principal actor, and weep 
 over that death as a sad calamity, which had proved such a 
 blessing to him. I fancied, too, I could see him moving 
 about in the room, shrugging his shoulders, and lifting up 
 his eyebrows, as he told each visitor, in a solemn whining, 
 " how much he regretted the melancholy bereavement." 
 
 At last, the hearse left the public-house where the drivers 
 and attendants had been stopping to drink till the " mourners" 
 were cloaked and gloved. Then was assigned to each his 
 particular station in the procession, with all the hollow eti- 
 quette of grief, and the same stickling for precedence in woe, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 215 
 
 as if the funeral had been some jubilee at court. As I heard 
 the hearse rumble slowly from the door, I went to the window 
 to watch my husband's remains as long as I could, on their 
 way to their last home. Oh ! how bitterly then I felt it, as I 
 saw the vain and empty procession move slowly along the 
 crowded thoroughfare. Here were borrowed plumes carried 
 above the heads of the hireling attendants, and the horses, 
 with their let-out velvet trappings, and the black cloaks of 
 the mourners, lent for the occasion, and the brass -tipped 
 ebony wands of the paid and costumed troop. After this 
 came a long line of shut-up empty carriages — as if the owners, 
 knowing why they had been invited to the ceremony, had 
 sent that for which alone their company had been requested. 
 When I saw all this, I could not help thinking what a hollow 
 theatrical show the whole train was; and false and wicked 
 as I might have felt other displays to be, I saw in this the 
 worst deceit of all; vanity playing at grief, as if — to reverse 
 the fable — the showy peacock had borrowed the plumes of 
 the sable jack-daw. 
 
 As soon as the dismal Ceremony was over, back came the 
 mourners, hurrying to the luncheon which I had prepared for 
 them. As I received them, one after another, in the draw- 
 ing-room, I could see some of them eye the various articles 
 of furniture, and hear them, as they did so, say, in a whisper, 
 to the others near them, " Poor thing, I'm sure my heart 
 bleeds for her! Have you heard when the sale takes place?'* 
 
 " No, I hav'n't," some other would reply; "but it can't be 
 long now. Dear! dear! it's as melancholy an affair as I ever 
 knew. Now, there's that pier glass, it never could have 
 been made under forty pounds, and you'll see it will go for a 
 mere song." 
 
 " Bless me !" the first speaker would again exclaim, " you 
 don't say so! And it would be just the thing for my draw- 
 ing-room mantelpiece. I shall certainly — come what will — 
 make a point of attending the sale." 
 
 " Yes, you may depend upon it, the sacrifice of property 
 will be terrific. You've seen poor dear Dawdle's splendid 
 service of plate, haven't you? I forget how much he paid 
 only for the dies, just to have his crest raised on it — poor 
 
216 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 fellow! I shouldn't wonder, now, if it went for the price of 
 old silver; and that's dreadful to think of, you know. So 
 I shall be here on the day of the auction, and see whether 
 they are to be picked up a bargain." 
 
 Then, in another corner of the room, I should overhear the 
 following: — 
 
 "Lord! my dear Sir, I don't pity them in the least. It 
 may be a hard thing to say at the present moment, but they 
 are not worthy of the slightest sympathy, take my word for 
 it." 
 
 "Goodness, me!" exclaimed the other — " why, I always 
 heard poor Dawdle was so remarkably generous and hospit- 
 able." 
 
 "Eubbish! rubbish, sir! — the cant of the day! I like to 
 hear people call things by their proper names; and if we say 
 it was downright ignorance of the value of money, we shall be 
 nearer the mark, you may depend upon it. Why, sir, I've 
 dined here, week after week, and we have always drunk the 
 very best Champagne, or sparkling Hock, out of our tumblers, 
 sir. Now, do you call that hospitality, or wilful extrava- 
 gance, I should like to know?" 
 
 " Shameful, shameful! and you see, now, it turns out that 
 the wine wasn't paid for." 
 
 " Of course not, sir, — of course not. I knew as much at 
 the time I was drinking it. But that was no affair of mine. 
 The fact was, young Dawdle had no more knowledge of 
 the world than a child. Now, sir, there was that chesnut 
 cob I had picked up dirt cheap — at Barnet fair, I think 
 it was; — and after having the poor thing doctored, and dipt, 
 and trimmed, you know — why, it turned out a very showy 
 and useful little animal. Well, sir — you will hardly be- 
 lieve it — but poor Charles took such a fancy to it, that, 
 though I told him over and over again I would not part with 
 it for love or money, yet he went on offering me, first fifty 
 pounds — then a hundred — then a hundred and twenty-five — 
 until, I declare, sir, one morning, if the reckless spendthrift 
 didn't come down to my house and offer me no less than a 
 hundred and fifty, and put the money down upon the table 
 before me, in bank-notes, sir! — yes! bank-notes! Well, of 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 217 
 
 course, being a married man, and the father of a family, why, 
 I felt it to be only my duty to my wife and children no longer 
 to refuse — though I verily believe, if I'd only stood out a 
 little longer, I might have had two hundred pounds as easily 
 as a penny for the nag. Well, now, I ask you, after that, sir, 
 is it wonderful that his widow is left to starve?" 
 
 " You surprise me," replied the other one. " Why, I heard 
 he was allowed a thousand a-year until he came of age. But 
 if he went on in that way, of course six times that sum 
 wouldn't have been enough for him." 
 
 " Yes, sir, you are quite right! And what became of the 
 thousand a-year he had, sir? Why, it was all squandered — 
 yes, squandered, sir, in blind Hookey of a night, sir; when 
 be knew, too, that should anything happen to him before he 
 was twenty-one, his life was uninsured, sir. Why, I myself 
 have, over and over again, won fifty and sixty pounds at a 
 sitting, when he has been so fuddled with wine that he could 
 scarcely tell one card from another, sir. In my pocket-book 
 I have at this moment got I. 0. XL's to near upon a thousand; 
 and what are they worth now, I would ask you, sir? Why, 
 not so much as a snap of the fingers," he continued, snapping 
 them. " And do you call that honour, or even common honesty, 
 i should like to know, sir?" he asked, in a suppressed fury. 
 
 " Why, certainly not," the other replied. "I must confess 
 it does appear to me — that is, I should say, those are not 
 exactly the terms that I should apply to such conduct. 
 But I always thought he was quite a different man — that 
 is to say, imprudent, but with a fine impulsive nature, you 
 know." 
 
 " Fine impulsive fiddlesticks, sir! The fact of it was, he 
 had selfishness grimed into him, sir, so deep, that he was 
 utterly regardless of what became of any other person. Let 
 me ask you, then, sir, whether the man, to whose funeral we 
 have come, is one over whose departure we should grieve, sir?" 
 
 "I perfectly agree with you, sir; and the fact is, I shouldn't 
 have come myself, only I did it to keep up appearances. But 
 look, they are going down stairs to lunch. I saw the cloth 
 laid in the parlour as we came in, and I hear poor Dawdle 
 had some excellent port." 
 
 Q 
 
218 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Ah, you may say that, sir. Upwards of twenty years 
 in bottle, and yet quite a bouquet, sir! Vintage twenty-four 
 — think of that, sir! — twenty-four; and not in the least 
 pricked, I give you my word, sir !" he added, in an under 
 voice, tapping his hand as he and the others descended the 
 
 stairs. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The next fearful trial I had to undergo was the sale of the 
 furniture. I remained under the roof as long as I could, for 
 I dreaded having to return to my father's home, after the 
 warning he had given me of what my marriage would end in. 
 
 l5ay after day I put off my departure, remaining shut up 
 in my bedroom, until all the different articles of furniture 
 that I treasured had been ticketed in readiness for the cominsr 
 sale. The house had been stripped from attic to basement. 
 The carpets were taken up, and the whole of the furniture 
 crammed and huddled together into the principal rooms. In 
 the parlour, that I had prided myself so upon, were the kettles 
 and saucepans from the kitchen, with the flat irons, and 
 brass candlesticks, stowed away inside of them, and ranged 
 all round the room. In one corner stood the kitchen table, 
 and on it was the hall clock, and the fender and fire-irons 
 from the bedroom, and beside them were both our dinner 
 lamps. On the floor lay all the books that we had had so 
 splendidly bound, tied up in separate parcels M'ith string. 
 Then came a shower bath, and inside of this were the foils 
 and boxing-gloves, and the umbrella stand. Then all the 
 chairs were piled up one atop of another, and within the up- 
 permost were placed our desks, and the lamp from the hall, 
 and my brass birdcage, and the drawing-room rugs. On our 
 splendid mahogany sideboard lay the copper warming pan, 
 and the double-barrelled gun, the Turkey carpet, and my 
 side-saddle and bridle. In the library I found the tinned 
 meat-screen, and on one of its shelves was the stuffed figure 
 of Charles' favourite beagle in a glass case, with my guitar, 
 his cornet-a-piston, and the drawing-room bellows, while on 
 the shelves of the bookcase were ranged the kitchen plates 
 and dishes, and the glasses and decanters, together with poor 
 black Bess's hoof with its silver shoe, the tea-caddy, a meer- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 219 
 
 schaum pipe, and my husband's regimental sword epaulets. 
 Near the window stood all the hunting, driving, and riding 
 whips, tied up together, and beside them the cook's and 
 housemaid's brooms. In another corner was stowed away 
 the oil-cloth, a fishing-rod and landing-net, and the brass 
 poles for the curtains. 
 
 But what shocked me more than all the rest was, that 
 when I entered the drawing-room, there, hanging to nails 
 driven into the beautiful gilt paper, dangled all the linen of 
 the house. Here were the blankets side by side with my 
 lovely damask table-cloths, and the sheets next to the splendid 
 drawing-room curtains, and the napkins and the dusters and 
 the towels all higgledy-piggledy together. Down the middle 
 of the carpetless room was my mahogany pembroke dining- 
 table, drawn out to its extreme length, ready for the pur- 
 chasers to sit round. On it were ranged the plate and both 
 Charles' and my dressing-cases, and all our splendid china 
 and or-molu clocks, and the silver inkstands, and the model 
 of a yatch, and two racing cups. 
 
 Lying down close by the window were the stair carpets, 
 with the printed bills of the sale, " By order of the sheriff," 
 pasted on them, all ready for the day on which it was an- 
 nounced to take place — and I shuddered as my eye fell 
 upon it. 
 
 The naked stairs creaked again under my tread, and the 
 house seemed scarcely to be the same place, as I passed heart- 
 broken from one room to another. It looked so dirty and 
 desolate, that unwilling as I might have been to leave it 
 before, I now hurried from it into the cab the auctioneer's 
 man had kindly fetched for me; and letting the thick crape 
 down over my face, I threw myself back so that none of the 
 neighbours might see the misery that I felt was chalked on 
 my countenance. 
 
 As I neared my father's house, I dreaded to meet even the 
 servants. Six months ago they had lined the hall, to wish 
 my poor husband and myself long life and happiness, and see 
 us start off in our carriage-and-four for the Continent. Now 
 I was returning a penniless and wretched widow ! 
 
 But much as I shuddered at the idea of this meeting, still 
 
 Q2 
 
220 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 my fear of them was as nothing compared with my dread of 
 facing him whom, had I judged him rightly, there was the 
 least cause to fear. For no sooner did my father see 
 me, than — whether it was from pity at the paleness of my 
 cheeks, or joy at my return, I know not — but he sought by 
 every kindness to soothe and cheer me, and to divert my mind 
 from the dreadful scenes I had witnessed. For a fortnight, at 
 least, he never mentioned even my husband's name. But he 
 took every opportunity of pointing out to me, by means of the 
 many beautiful illustrations that his knowledge of the sciences 
 afforded him, the wise and benevolent economy of the uni- 
 verse, — showing me how mercifully everything had been 
 arranged, and how pain and grief had only been designed to 
 disgust us with that which was evil, and by chastening, to fit 
 and turn us to that which was good. 
 
 At last, when he thought I was in a measure calmed and 
 resigned, he took advantage, one evening, of my mother's 
 absence at Fanny's to tell me how glad he was to have 
 me back again with him. 
 
 " When I parted with you," he said, " you'll remember, 
 Lotty, I told you — perhaps harshly — what were my senti- 
 ments on committing you to the guardianship of a man whose 
 character and pursuits I could neither approve nor admire." 
 
 " But, father," I replied, with the tears starting to my 
 eyes, " he to whom you allude is now no more, and surely 
 you should not be the first person to make his memory less 
 sacred to me." 
 
 " My dear girl," he answered, " I should never have touched 
 upon this subject, had I not thought that speaking honestly to 
 the living was a higher and far better thing than flattering the 
 dead. Do not imagine, my dear child, that your father would 
 wish to wound you uselessly. I want to turn your eyes to 
 the past, so that, like the boatman, you may advance the better 
 into the future. You must remember that with the dawn of 
 your reason I lost all right of authority over you ; my prero- 
 gative then was no longer to command, but to w^arn and 
 advise. When I spoke to you on the eve of your marriage, I 
 knew I spoke to one whose heart was deaf to reason; but 
 still my conscience would not allow me to hand you over to 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 221 
 
 the man you had selected as your protector without raising 
 my voice against an union which, for the causes I then spe- 
 cified to you, I felt satisfied could lead to no good." 
 
 "Father!" I exclaimed, "you did not know him! He 
 always did his duty to me." 
 
 "My good child!" he replied, rather sharply, "was it his 
 duty to unsex you — to teach you to delight in those mas- 
 culine amusements which God, in the very frame he gave 
 you, had put his ban upon? If He gave to your sex less 
 strength of limb, it was to tell you that you were not to be- 
 come the hunter as well as your mate. If He gave you 
 greater timidity, and a quicker sympathy for suffering, it was 
 because he intended you to find your pleasure in the rearing 
 of living things, rather than the slaughtering of them. And 
 when I saw my girl finding pleasure in those sports which my 
 beautiful profession had taught me the Creator had not only 
 forbidden, but almost prevented her from knowing, it made 
 my heart bleed — and it was the bleeding of that heart, my 
 good girl, that made me warn you of the evil that was to 
 come, and speak as earnestly to you as I then did and do 
 now." 
 
 " Warned me, father !" I exclaimed, indignantly ; " why, 
 the evil that has fallen on me was an accident that no one 
 could have foreseen!" 
 
 " The evil that I foresaw, Lotty," he replied, " was a far 
 worse one than that which so providentially saved you 
 from it." 
 
 " You have no right, Sir," I cried, starting up, " to tell me 
 that my husband's death was a blessing." 
 
 " Nay — nay! hear me out, Lotty," he answered, taking my 
 hand, "and then judge whether the affection I bear you, and 
 the regard I have for your happiness and character, does not 
 give me the right to call it so. The calamity I foresaw, 
 girl, was to have happened when your husband's tastes 
 should have changed with his increasing years, and the man 
 should have outlived the follies of his youth. Then the mon- 
 strosities he had taught you, and which he, as a boy, had 
 thought it a fine thing to see you indulge in, could not but 
 have appeared loathsome to him. As long as your lips were 
 
222 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 as crimson, and your mouth as arched and small as it is now, 
 and so long as his thoughtlessness continued, it might have been 
 a capital joke to him to see you play the puppy and puff the 
 cigar. But women cannot be beauties, nor men boys, all their 
 lives; and as you wrinkled, and he grew sober, and most 
 likely churlish, with age, he would have been the first to 
 loathe the very being that he himself had made you. He 
 might have allowed you were the best of horsewomen, 
 but I'm afraid he would have thought you the worst of 
 wives. The sentiment of the honeymoon does not last for 
 life, and however much a man may have been fascinated with 
 the show and ' devilry,' as it is called, of a ' dashing* 
 woman, still, in the end, Nature, depend upon it, will have 
 her sway. Man will, after all, only love woman for being the 
 opposite, and not the counterpart of his own qualities. With 
 his superior courage, he loves her timidity, because it seems 
 to sue for his protection. He is charmed by her gentleness 
 and kindness, because it is a restraint upon his sterner and 
 more impatient disposition; while he cannot help admiring 
 her for the weakness that looks up to his superior strength 
 for aid. If he be a man, he feels as proud of assisting her 
 in his rougher way, as he is vain at being assisted by her in 
 her gentler one." 
 
 " Yes, of course," I replied; "when a woman marries, she 
 expects to find a protector in her husband." 
 
 "Certainly," he answered; " and what, my dear girl, do 
 you think the husband expects to find in the woman when he 
 takes her in marriage? Is he to shelter and provide for her, 
 and yet meet with no return but the transient ornament of 
 her beauty? Is she to be the helpmate — or the doll? If he 
 provides the home, surely she ought to take care of it. If 
 he provides the food, surely she ought to prepare it." 
 
 " Really, father," I exclaimed, indignantly, " I don't see 
 that the wife should be the servant of the husband." 
 
 " No, I know you don't, Lotty," he answered, bitterly, " and 
 that will be the cause of all your misery through life. You 
 are like many others, whose natures have been poisoned 
 by the empty fashion of the time, and think it a degradation 
 in the wife to serve the husband, though you are the first to 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 223 
 
 complain if the husband neglect to serve the wife. Let 
 him fail to earn the daily food, and none like yourselves know 
 so well the wrong that has been done to you. But if you 
 are told it is your duty to do any servitude for him in return, 
 your conventional nature rebels at the fancied indignity of 
 making the least return for your living." 
 
 " Yes, father, I'll grant that may hold with the lower 
 orders," I replied; "but you forget that among the higher 
 classes, a lady expects to have her servants under her." 
 
 " I know she does," he went on; "and because the man 
 who has the lucky accident of being able to find her this assist- 
 ance gladly parts with his means to ease her of her rightful 
 labours, she thinks nothing remains for her to do, and 
 henceforth considers the performance of any of the domestic 
 duties a disgrace; her greatest glory being to be thought 
 the woman of fashion, and her greatest shame to be fancied 
 to be the housewife; until at length the only pleasure she 
 thinks of is outside her home, her only happiness to be away 
 from her hearth; and often so unsexed does she become, that 
 she must even lay aside that quality which is her greatest 
 beauty of all, and hand her very babes over to be suckled 
 by a stranger, so that the duties of the mother may not spoil 
 the figure of the fine lady, or the cries of her helpless little 
 one for the food which Heaven has entrusted her with, 
 may not drag her away an hour or two earlier from the 
 theatre or the ball-room. And what is the frightful conse- 
 quence of all this? The mother brings up her daughters 
 with the same views as herself; she heaps upon them all the 
 most factitious accomplishments, and teaches them that the 
 great object of their girlhood is to catch a man who has the 
 power of finding them in every luxury, and keeping them in 
 continual idleness." 
 
 "But, father, you speak like an embittered, disappointed 
 man, and as if you hated women," was all I could say in 
 defence. 
 
 " I speak, my good child," he continued, more excited than 
 before, " as one who loves and admires woman as Heaven 
 formed her, and loathes her as fashion has deformed her. My 
 profession has shown to me what a masterpiece of creation 
 
224 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 she is. It is seeing her in the sick-room that makes me loathe 
 the outward semblance of her that I find in the ball-room. 
 It is seeing her, as I have, beaming with that most special 
 and wondrous quality of her nature — her maternal love — 
 that most bounteous gift of Him who ordained that on the 
 very threshold of our existence the warmest and purest of all 
 the affections should greet us; and it is seeing what the 
 mother, in her natural state, can and will bear for her babe, 
 that makes me heart-sick when I see, as I too frequently do, 
 for how little the mother, in her artificial state, will put her 
 child away." 
 
 "Oh!" I answered, "I really am quite surprised to hear 
 that poor woman has so much as a virtue left." 
 
 " Yes, Lotty," he continued, " because I do not speak the 
 cant of the day, and cry you up as perfect creatures, you, 
 like a woman, must pretend to be astonished that I can discover 
 in you any beauty at all. Surely you ought, by this time, 
 to be surfeited with the sickly nonsense that has been written 
 and spouted of you. Have you so often heard that ' Woman 
 is a treasure,' and that the ' angels were painted fair, to look 
 like you,' that you must grow angry if the least blemish is 
 found in you. And in what does all this fustian end? Why, 
 it unfits you for all your household work, for it makes you 
 believe that you really are such heavenly creatures, that it 
 would be unbecoming in you to do such earthly offices as 
 darn a stocking or make a pie." 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course!" I answered, with biting sarcasm. 
 " Man's an angel, I shouldn't wonder — oh, yes, of course 
 he is." 
 
 "No!" he answered, quite coolly; "I neither said nor 
 meant anything of the kind. I have no more wish to exalt 
 man into a faultless state than woman; and had his nature 
 been bepuffed and bepraised as lustily and foolishly as yours 
 has, I should, I hope, have spoken out as strongly against 
 him as I have against woman. All I wish to make my 
 child know is, that in marriage there is a double pledge, and 
 that, if anything, the woman undertakes to do more than the 
 man. You should remember, my good girl, that birds pair 
 as well as mankind. And many women, perhaps, might take 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 225 
 
 a useful lesson from them. There the female minds the nest, 
 while the male goes abroad to seek the food. She tends and 
 nourishes the young, and he supplies her with the means. 
 And the very activity, strength, and restlessness, that the 
 Almighty has given to man, and the sedativeness and love of 
 order that He has bestowed on woman, together with those 
 wondrous founts of life that he has added to her frame, prove 
 that the same laws that govern the birds of the air He in- 
 tended likewise to have power over the sons and daughters of 
 the earth." 
 
 " But I really confess, Sir, that I cannot see what con- 
 nexion this can have with my marriage with my poor departed 
 husband," I said, wishing to end the argument. " I'm sure 
 that had he been spared to me, we should have gone on very 
 happily together." 
 
 " Indeed," he answered, with a shake of the head, " I 
 doubt it, Lotty. I have no good opinion of soldiers. It may 
 be, perhaps, from the difference of our trades — theirs, be it 
 remembered, is to inflict wounds, mine is to heal them. And 
 whatever my sentiments might have been towards them be- 
 fore your marriage, still the violent alteration that took place 
 in your character directly you became acquainted with them, 
 made me dislike them worse than ever. I knew before that 
 they always degraded the standard of excellence in woman, 
 but I little expected it would be one day my fate to have that 
 degradation wrought in my own child." 
 
 "I hope, Father, you will remember /am a soldier's widow,'* 
 I murmured, as I burst into tears. 
 
 " I dare say," my poor Lotty," he answered, quite moved 
 by my manner, " it may appear unkind in me to tell you 
 I would sooner have you be the soldier's widow than the 
 soldier's wife. Soldiers are fearful people enough in war; 
 and yet to my mind they ravage a city a thousandfold more 
 cruelly in peace. The pillaging of virtue, the sacking of 
 hearts, the destroying of happiness, and, more than all, their 
 heartless triumph and unmanly boastings over the moral ruins 
 they make among your silly sex, would cause you to loathe 
 them as bitterly as myself, if you knew the havoc that they 
 make in woman as well as I do. That an army is a necessary 
 
226 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 evil I cannot deny, but let it do its evil work against armed 
 men, and not against weak, weak woman." 
 
 I saw it was of no use — even if I had been in the mood — 
 to answer him; so I merely shook my head, determined to 
 let him go on until he should tire himself. 
 
 " And these are the men, Lotty, that prate to you, and 
 others less fortunate than yourself, of their love of defenceless 
 woman! It is to protect your sex, they would tell you, they 
 have taken up arms; and yet they would ruin your sex while 
 they whispered the lie in your ears. Look at them, and what 
 do you find? The common soldiers preying on servant-maids, 
 not for the necessities, but for the excesses of life. Tricking 
 the poor drudges of the kitchen or the work-room — the 
 wretched servant-of-all-work or the slaving milliner, — out 
 of their weekly or quarterly pittance. And when the poor 
 dupe's wages are all exhausted, then, forsooth, their very 
 clothes must be sold to supply these men, not with what they 
 want, but what they wish for. And these "men of glory" 
 take the last penny the poor girls can raise; telling them 
 they alone are loved, though the same lips have told the 
 same lie to some half dozen other victims before. And 
 when the pocket and the savings bank are drained, and the 
 clothes are gone, and the reputation is ruined, then they fling 
 the weak ones from them, to become whatever their despera- 
 tion may prompt or force them to become." 
 
 " But is it entirely the soldier's fault, father?" I said, ex- 
 postulating. 
 
 " You are right, Lotty," he replied. " Your foolish, fine- 
 clothes-loving sex, are nearly as much to blame. You know 
 it is almost moral pollution to deal with these men; still such 
 is the fascination of their dress upon you that you cannot keep 
 away. And yet the very sword and colour of the coat which 
 attract you, should suggest associations to your gentler 
 nature, that should make you shudder at, rather than admire 
 the wearer of them. That this fascination is not confined to 
 servant-maids is, alas! too fully proved by the ruined daughters 
 of respectable and wealthy men, that every regiment on its 
 change of quarters leaves behind it. That there are honour- 
 able exceptions to this rule I am glad to be obliged to confess; 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 227 
 
 but having well studied the influence the soldier generally 
 has upon the female character, I could not help shuddering 
 when I saw my child about to link herself to one of them, as 
 heartily as I now thank God for her deliverance from them ! — 
 cruel as the thanksgiving may sound in your ears, Lotty. 
 Forget the habits they have taught you, girl, and be again 
 my child. I have had hard things to say to you, my 
 poor one! but the moral surgeon must sometimes be as 
 unfeeling as the bodily one. However, the task I dreaded — 
 and indeed put off from day /to day, because I wanted the 
 courage to warn you as I knew I must for your welfare — is 
 now, to my great joy, finished; my harsh words are at an 
 
 end. May God teach better things, dear girl!" 
 
 ***** 
 
 It was astonishing how different home became to me after 
 having once had a house of my own. I was afraid even to 
 order the servants, for fear they might turn round and 
 tell me I was not their mistress. I had known what it was 
 to feel jealous when my mother used to interfere with my 
 house, and it was a long time before I could bring myself to 
 feel I was not interfering with the arrangements of hers. 
 Then, again, having once left my home, I could not divest my 
 mind of the idea, that my return was a favour. I lived in 
 the house with the sense of an obligation being conferred upon 
 me; and this was wormwood to my pride. Though my father 
 was kinder to me than I had ever known him in all my life, 
 still I could not forget what he had told me were his opinions 
 of me, so that I could not bear to meet his look, and when I felt 
 his eye upon me, I could not help casting mine on the ground. 
 A coldness seemed to have come over me, and I felt in my own 
 parents' house the chill of dependence. I had once known the 
 freedom of being my own mistress, and I could not get rid of 
 the sense, that it was my poverty that had again placed me 
 under the will of others. 
 
 I knew that even the maids pitied me for the penniless 
 state in which I had been left; and to my haughty mind, their 
 over-willingness to serve me had a stinging sense of charity 
 in it. My chief amusement was to sit alone moping in my 
 own bedroom, and trying to divert my mind with some of 
 
228 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 the serious books my father had given me. But though my 
 eye was wandering over the page, still my brain was busy 
 with contrasting my former with my present lot. One time 
 I was thinking into whose hands the furniture could have 
 passed ; at another, who had bought my piano, and what our 
 brougham had fetched. Then I felt a desire to go and see 
 the house again; and wondered to myself whether it was still 
 untenanted, or whether, after all the alterations we had made, 
 it let for much more. Then I would think how I should 
 like to know -what amount the sale produced altogether. 
 
 I could hardly bring myself to believe my poor husband 
 was dead; and when I did, it seemed to me as if something 
 were wanting to make the world whole again to me — as if 
 some familiar picture had been taken down from the wall, 
 or some well-knoAvn statue was missing from its customary 
 niche. At dinner, too, I felt as if some guest were missing, 
 some chair was vacant; and often, before I had grown accus- 
 tomed to my bereavement, in the impulse of the moment, I 
 would almost ask, " Where is Charles?" 
 
 But night was the time I dreaded most. As I went up 
 stairs, every dark corner seemed to conceal his spectre. If I 
 sat alone, 1 feared to look round, for I felt him standing at my 
 elbow. In the looking-glass I was too frightened to peep, for 
 I was sure I should see his pale face over my shoulder. 
 And when I put my candle out at night, I used to turn round 
 and bury my head in my pillow, lest he should force himself 
 upon my sight despite of my closed eyelids. And as I lay 
 there sleepless and trembling, I would determine to lead a 
 new life, and make my peace with all the world. 
 
 It was after a sleepless night, when a few hours' rest only 
 came with the morning, that I made the best of my way to 
 Fanny's, intent upon being friends again with her. When I 
 got there, I stood for a moment looking at the house. It 
 had been newly painted, and appeared so clean and com- 
 fortable, and brought back to me such a sense of my own 
 destitution, that though I was at the door, I could not 
 bring myself to raise the knocker. So I walked up and down, 
 and up and down again, for my conscience would not let 
 me go away, and my pride would not let me do what I had 
 come for. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 229 
 
 But Fanny saw me from the window, and though I imme- 
 diately tried to hurry away, still before I could get to the end 
 of the street, the servant was by my side, and my sister 
 standing on the door-step, beckoning me back. 
 
 But that visit was a melancholy pleasure to me. I had 
 not been inside Fanny's door for some time. Then the 
 rooms were as slightly furnished as possible, and there was 
 a half-naked look about the house. The drawing-rooms 
 were empty, and the stair carpets went no further than the 
 first landing, while in the parlour the mantelpiece was bare; 
 there were no curtains, and only two muslin blinds to the 
 windows. The chairs were no more in number than were 
 actually requisite, and over the fire-place were only such 
 paper ornaments and alum baskets as Fanny herself could 
 make. On the hearth was a green painted bed-room fender 
 with its brass rim, and a common rug before it, such as I gave 
 my servants. 
 
 Then I couldn't help saying to myself, what a lucky girl I 
 was not to have married a man who had yet his way to make 
 in the world; and contrasting the cold look of the apartment 
 in which I sat, with the snug and handsome room of my 
 little palace, I would hurry off as soon as with any decency 
 I could. 
 
 Now I saw by the additions that had been made to the 
 furniture in the room, how rapidly they had been thriving in 
 the world since I had last seen them. On the once bare 
 mantelpiece was a bronze clock and a large pier glass. Be- 
 fore the windows hung curtains of crimson cloth. The bed- 
 room fender had been displaced by a handsome steel one, and 
 in one corner of the room was a cottage piano, while next 
 the fire, where Fanny had been sitting, was a rosewood work- 
 table, the brightness of whose silk told me that it also was a 
 recent purchase. The drawing-rooms were yet empty, but 
 the stair-carpets had been extended to the bedrooms. I 
 could see in all this such a growing prosperity, and such a 
 gradual extension of their comforts in proportion as their 
 means increased, which told me how happy my sister was, and 
 how much happier still she was to be, in the home I once had 
 thought so wretched. 
 
 Fanny was in high spirits. Mr. Brooke had that morning 
 
230 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 sent in a man to take the measure of the carpets wanted for the 
 drawing-room, and she asked me to come and choose with her 
 from the patterns he had left, and let her know which I liked 
 the best. As we looked over them, she told me how they had 
 arranged with the money their next year's accounts would 
 bring them, to furnish the drawing-rooms. Then came a 
 host of little household cares — as to how they should have 
 done it before, only Mr. Brooke's practice and connexions 
 had increased so greatly, that he had found it necessary, 
 in order to get over his daily rounds, to start his brougham, 
 and that for a time had thrown them back a little. However, 
 thank goodness, they could still hear a knock at their door 
 without dreading to open it, for they did not owe a penny 
 in the world. 
 
 But though Fanny was gentle and good, and sought by 
 every inducement she could to make me promise I would 
 come and live with her, yet the increasing comforts I had 
 seen in her house, while mine had all fallen and withered 
 away in my grasp, made the contrast so hateful to me, that I 
 could not stay there in peace, and making an excuse that 
 mamma required me at home, I left the house, glad when I 
 was in the street again. 
 
 All the w r ay home I could not help comparing my lot w r ith 
 hers. To think that they, with all the furniture they had 
 gathered about them, " did not owe a penny in the world," 
 and yet I, without even a bed that I could call my own, was 
 still in debt for my husband's funeral. 
 
 When I reached home, before I had finished knocking, 
 I was startled by the door being suddenly opened. Mr. Caw- 
 thorne was waiting in the passage, and he had let me in. In 
 my terror at seeing him, I felt satisfied he had come on pur- 
 pose to ask me for his bill, and that the bracket for the kit- 
 chen clock, which he had brought with him, was a mere pre- 
 text. I felt the blood rush up to my cheeks, as I said, " How 
 do you do, Mr. Cawthorne? I haven't forgotten your little 
 bill!" "Don't mention that, Marm, I beg," he answered, 
 " I aint in any particular hurry — so pray don't inconvenience 
 yourself on that account, Marm." " Thank you," I replied, 
 "you are very good;" and I bit my lips at the indignity of 
 being forced to accept the man's grace. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 231 
 
 I went quickly into the parlour to avoid the man. My 
 mother was there, and — as my fate would have it — in not the 
 best of humours, for I had unfortunately left the house with 
 her keys in my pocket. Seeing her there, and feeling myself 
 sad at heart, and only fit for solitude, I hastily quitted the 
 room, and in doing so, the door unfortunately slammed loudly 
 after me. It appeared she had said something angrily to me 
 about her keys, but being too much occupied with my feelings, 
 I had not heard her, and she foolishly construed my leaving 
 the room, and slamming the door after me, into a purposed 
 slight. 
 
 Nor had we, indeed, been on the best terms of late. She 
 had spoken harshly to me of my dead husband, and told me I 
 deserved to be what I was for not having made him insure 
 his life, when she had so often warned me of the consequences 
 of any calamity befalling him. This had led to words between 
 us — for she wanted the mild and dispassionate manner of my 
 father — besides, I knew that she who was now the first to 
 blame me for the alliance, was once the readiest to counsel me 
 to it. 
 
 She quickly followed me into the library, and coming up 
 to me, said, " I must beg, Mrs. Dawdle, that you will re- 
 member that you are not in your own house to bang the doors 
 about as you please." I might have entered into an explana- 
 tion with her, had she used any other language to me; but it 
 was the sense that I had no longer a house to be in, that had 
 been festering in my heart all the way home from my sister's. 
 The creditor I had met in the passage had only served to widen 
 the wound; so I felt my bosom heave as if it would burst, 
 while I tapped the floor with my foot, to give some harmless 
 vent to my passion, which I felt was boiling up to my lips. 
 In the fury of my strong pride, I answered her something 
 which I do not remember, only I know it was not as re- 
 spectful as it should have been. 
 
 This broke through all the little restraint she had over 
 herself, and she poured forth the vials of her wrath on me, 
 calling me such harsh names, that made my whole frame quiver 
 with rage, and I would not trust myself with a word in reply. 
 
 The morning's paper was lying on the table. I took it up, 
 and tried to read it, that I might not hear what she said; 
 
232 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 but it rustled in my trembling hand as I held it, and the print 
 danced before my eyes. I was determined in my soul that — say 
 what she might — she should not make me forget my duty to- 
 wards her; and, by a violent effort, I held the paper still in 
 my clenched hands. Then, locking my lips with my teeth, 
 so that no word should escape me, I fixed my eye upon one 
 spot, determined to read, and so shut out her maddening 
 words from my brain. It was an advertisement for a gover- 
 ness that my eye rested on; and as I forced myself to read it 
 word by word, my mother fancied I merely did so to enrage 
 her the more. Growing more and more violent, she screamed 
 outlier words louder and louder still, till at length the terms 
 "beggar" and "locust" forced themselves upon my ear, and, 
 with my woman's pride, I instinctively knew that the man 
 in the passage must have heard them. 
 
 I remained not a moment longer in the room. Taking 
 the paper with me, I hurried along the passage, and in an 
 instant was outside the door, and on my road to answer in 
 person the very advertisement my eye had rested upon. 
 
 The situation was in the family of a rich East India mer- 
 chant, to superintend the education of his young motherless 
 children. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 233 
 
 OFFER THE TENTH. 
 
 WANTED A GOVERNESS! — FOR HIS MOTHERLESS CHILDREN, TOO! — YES, 
 WANT A GOVERNESS MY GENTLEMAN CERTAINLY DID, BUT THEN IT 
 WAS NOT FOR HIS MOTHERLESS CHILDREN, INDEED ! BUT FOR HIMSELF 
 — A CONCEITED, SNUFFY OLD SCOTCH THING. IF HE'D HAD A GOOD 
 STRONG-MINDED, HIGH-SPIRITED WOMAN, INSTEAD OF A GENTLE, 
 GOOD-NATURED, SIMPLE SILLY LIKE MYSELF, IT WOULD HAVE JUST 
 SERVED HIM RIGHT, IT WOULD. UPON MY WORD THESE OLD MEN 
 ARE TEN TIMES WORSE THAN THE YOUNG ONES, AND THEY ARE 
 BAD ENOUGH, GOODNESS KNOWS. WELL ! ALL I CAN SAY IS — THAT I 
 WOULD HAVE GIVEN A GOOD DEAL, IN MY SMALL WAY, IF I HAD 
 NEVER SET EYES UPON THE GREY-HEADED OLD CROCODILE. DEAR 
 DEAR ! I WOULDN'T HAVE MY TIME TO GO OVER AGAIN, NO ! NOT 
 FOR ALL THE GOLD IN THE MINES OF PERU. 
 
 Walking as fast as I could, I was not long before I reached 
 the circulating library in John-street, Portland-road, where 
 ail applications for the governess's situation were to be made. 
 But when I got to the shop, though I let down my veil, I 
 could not enter the place. The idea of my going to seek for 
 a situation, indeed! I, whose father kept his carriage! and 
 whose husband but a month ago was entitled to one of the 
 largest estates in Cumberland! 
 
 Accordingly I looked at all the prints and books in the shop 
 window till I declare I was quite ashamed of myself, and 
 fancied the people inside, from my prolonged stay, might 
 grow suspicious of me. Then, just for the mere look of the 
 thing, I stepped in and bought a quire of paper, saying to 
 myself that, whilst the man was doing it up, I could intro- 
 duce the subject of the governess — as if quite casually — to 
 him. 
 
 Still I was nearly going away without doing what was the 
 special object of my journey. As I was leaving the shop, 
 however, I suddenly turned round — as if the business had 
 been of such slight consequence to me that it had slipped my 
 memory — and returning to the counter, said, " Oh, by the 
 
 R 
 
234 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 "bye, I believe I saw something in the paper about a situation 
 for a governess?" 
 
 " Yes, miss," replied the man; then opening the little door 
 at the side of the shop, he shouted down the staircase, 
 ' Sarah, my dear, you're wanted; here's a young woman 
 after the situation of governess." 
 
 " Well, I can't come up just now," replied a female voice 
 "below ; " surely you can tell the young woman all about it as 
 well as I can." 
 
 On hearing myself spoken of as a " young woman, I felt 
 the blood tingle in my veins; and when the man had informed 
 me that the situation was at Sir Luke Sharpe's, in Portland- 
 place, I turned round, and tossing my head, said, in my most 
 dignified manner, " I beg your pardon, the situation I spoke of 
 is not for myself, but for a young lady (and I laid a great 
 stress upon the word) * who is about to leave my service,' and 
 whom I take a great interest in, and, indeed, am very anxious 
 to see comfortably settled again." 
 
 " Oh, really now this will never do!" exclaimed the man, 
 in an indignant tone. "You see we cannot go wasting 
 our time asking whether the situation's for yourself or not! 
 We get nothing by it, you know; and we've had upwards of 
 ■fifty people bothering here to-day, and they all come with 
 the same cock- and- a-»bull story about the situation not being 
 for themselves." 
 
 Without condescending to exchange another word with 
 the vulgar fellow, I sailed out of the shop, and made the 
 best of my way to Portland-place. 
 
 Of all the dirty and grand places I ever was in, I do think 
 that house of Sir Luke Sharpe's was the worst. Upon my 
 word it was as showy and grubby as our cook's morning cap. 
 The windows were an inch thick in dust; and though they 
 would have made excellent bits of glass for seeing an eclipse of 
 the sun through, still they were not at all calculated for seeing 
 into the street. At least half of the straight bits of wood were 
 gone from the mahogany frame of the half blinds in the 
 parlour — indeed, the green sticks in them looked about as 
 regular as the teeth of an old comb. Then the linen blinds, 
 too, had positively grown as brown, by continually hanging 
 down, as if they had been dipped in coffee. Nor was it as if 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 235 
 
 tills was accidental in the parlour, for I declare the same grubby 
 things were hanging down before the windows all the way up 
 the house. Outside one of the drawing-room windows was a 
 bit of cracked-looking glass, arranged so that the parties within 
 might have a full view of the doorstep and visitors outside. 
 
 When I entered the great big stone hall, paved like a 
 draught-board, I could tell, from the close smell of the place, 
 that a window hadn't been opened in the house for the last 
 six months at least. I was requested to take a seat for a 
 moment in the back-parlour, the servant telling me Sir 
 Luke would be with me directly. On being shown into it, 
 I knew at a glance that this was the dingy dungeon where 
 the baronet passed the better part of his existence. I had 
 expected the interior of the mansion would have been 
 dusty: but goodness! I was little prepared for such a filthy, 
 grimy place as it was. The papers could not have been 
 moved these twenty years, and the heap there was of the 
 dirty brown things scattered about the place was perfectly 
 wonderful. In one corner of the room was an old rose- 
 wood card-table, wide open, and positively covered with 
 them. On each side of the window were two whatnots, with 
 their shelves all strewn w T ith the same rubbish. The very 
 round table in the middle of the room, on which stood a little 
 lunch-tray, with a clean napkin — which from the force of 
 contrast actually looked as white as snow — was littered all 
 over with them. 
 
 Out of curiosity, I took up a bundle, and found it a parcel 
 of accounts "of the ship Marquis of Wellington." Here 
 was a packet of letters about the "Royal Copper Mine 
 Company." There lay a large deed, with " Shropshire 
 Canal" written outside it. I was just about to take up " a 
 policy of insurance on the houses Nos. 3, 4, and 5, Mincing- 
 lane," when to my horror I looked at my black kid gloves, 
 and found them as grey with the dust as French plums. 
 
 How Sir Luke could ever have managed to see what he 
 was about in the place was a perfect miracle to me. For the 
 little light that could get in by the large window, owing to the 
 stable being within a few yards of it, was almost effectually 
 blocked out by the large dusty curtains that hung before it. 
 Between the folds of the things the dirt was perfectly hor- 
 
 K2 
 
236 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 rible. At first I thought it was a white stripe, but on going 
 towards them I declare it was nothing but dust; for, un- 
 fortunately, I took hold of one of them to examine it, when, 
 oh dear ! down came a shower of the nasty light-coloured 
 soot all over the crape of my best bonnet. 
 
 It is needless for me to go into all the particulars of my 
 engagement; suffice it to say, I entered into the family of Sir 
 Luke Sharpe. 
 
 I hadn't been there very long before I got to understand 
 what kind of a gentleman the old baronet was. He was 
 even more conceited and selfish than old age generally makes 
 those who have succeeded in life. His principal vanity was 
 to be thought an exceedingly clever and acute observer of 
 human nature. He was continually boasting to you that it 
 was impossible to impose upon him, and yet all the while 
 he was being cheated by almost every one of the servants 
 about him. If ever he spoke to you, he was sure to beg of 
 you to understand " that he was not born yesterday," — though 
 there certainly was little chance of any one making the mis- 
 take, for he was seventy, if he was a day — and " that he had 
 got a head upon his shoulders," — which was a fact equally 
 clear to every impartial beholder. 
 
 Ask him his opinion of any one — the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, for instance — and, with a shake of his head and 
 a wink of his eye, he would advise you to take care of him, 
 for his Grace was a deuced sharp, clever fellow, and knew 
 what he was about as well as anybody, but it was no use his 
 trying it on with him, for though old Luke Sharpe might look 
 like a fool, still he had always gone through the world with 
 his eyes open, he could tell me. Ah! he should like to see 
 any one getting on the blind side of him. No, no; catch 
 a weasel asleep, that was all! — and then he'd chuckle away, 
 and rattle the halfpence in his trousers' pockets until he got 
 quite red in the face. 
 
 " How on earth," he would sometimes ask me all of a 
 sudden — " how on earth did I think he had ever managed to 
 get such a great big fine house over his head, when it was 
 very well known that his grandfather had cried fish in the 
 streets of Perth? Why, not by letting people pick his 
 pockets in broad daylight, to be sure. He knew what was 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 237 
 
 what, he could tell me. Hadn't he walked his way from 
 Berwick-upon-Tweed up to town upon nothing but hard 
 boiled eggs and raw turnips? and wasn't he now one of the 
 first ship-owners in the world? and how did I think he had 
 done it? "Why, not by falling asleep over his work. No! 
 but by always seeing that he had a ' good pennyworth' for 
 his penny. Yes, that was the way," he would say, half to 
 himself, and half to me, as he walked quite excitedly up and 
 down the room. Then, suddenly stopping, he would add in 
 a voice loud enough for me to hear him, " Dear, dear! when 
 I come to think of it all, it seems to me like a dream. Ah ! 
 people little know what a wonderful man I am; and what's 
 more, there are very few such wonderful men in the world, 
 I know." 
 
 Then he would sit down to his books, to balance his day's 
 expenses; and after scratching his head for about half an 
 hour, he'd wonder what on earth he ever could have done 
 with "that three halfpence;" and having tut-tutted to himself 
 for a good ten minutes, and said, it wasn't for the value of the 
 money, but he shouldn't be able to balance at the end of the 
 year, he'd turn round to me, and ask me to give him three 
 halfpence, as it would save him a world of trouble — adding, 
 that no man knew so well as he did, it was impossible to get 
 on in the world unless we made our accounts come right to 
 a farthing. 
 
 I hadn't been a week in the house before I found out that 
 Sir Luke Sharpe was one of the vainest men I had ever met 
 with in my humble way. For not only was he vain of his 
 having, through his own exertions, risen to the position he 
 had in the world, and of his being, as he thought, so very 
 clever and far-sighted, (though, for the matter of that, he 
 could scarcely see beyond his nose, and any one with their 
 senses about them might have twisted him round their little 
 finger,) but actually and truly he was as conceited of Ins per- 
 sonal appearance as if he had been the prince regent, and the 
 finest gentleman in England. What he could have seen in 
 himself, I'm sure I can't make out. It's true he imagined he 
 was the very image of Napoleon ; and certainly if Napoleon 
 had been a great, broad-shouldered, sandy-haired, and red- 
 faced Scotchman, standing at least six feet two in his pumps 
 
238 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 and black silk stockings, people might have discovered some 
 resemblance between Sir Luke Sharpe and the little corporal. 
 Oh! its perfectly ridiculous, and I've no patience with a parcel 
 of men always fancying themselves to be the exact resem- 
 blance of some great genius or other. Either we have some 
 stuck-up thing with a most inveterate snub, declaring he is 
 the very counterpart of that dear old Iron Duke; or else it's 
 some creature pitted with the small-pox, and a pair of mus- 
 tachios as red as a worn-out toothbrush, who will tell you 
 to your very face that he has over and over again been taken 
 for Prince Albert. And here was that vain old peacock of 
 a Sir Luke Sharpe — though his trousers hung so loose about 
 him that really his legs looked more like an elephant's than 
 a human being's — fancying, just because he took snuff by the 
 handful out of his waistcoat-pocket, and because he had been 
 " the architect of his own fortunes," as he delighted to call it 
 so grandly, that he had been made after the same pattern as 
 Napoleon. 
 
 Dear! the snuff that poor Sir Luke would take! I de- 
 clare sometimes he could scarcely speak for it. Positively, 
 the large frill which he usually wore sticking out of his white 
 waistcoat, was always sprinkled over with the brown stuffy 
 like nutmeg on the top of a custard. No wonder he was 
 obliged to put on a clean waistcoat every day; for I declare 
 if he hadn't a large chamois-leather pocket for his snuff made 
 in every one of the long-waisted, groom-like things. 
 
 For upwards of ten years of his life he was never known 
 to wear anything but pepper-and-salt trousers, and for a very 
 good reason. In one of his rambles, he had picked up a 
 whole piece of the stuff at a great bargain — at something less 
 than half its original cost, on account of its being slightly 
 spotted. This, he said, would do very well for him, for 
 every one who knew him was well aware who and what he 
 was, and as for those people that didn't know him, why he 
 didn't care twopence about them. He was not going to throw 
 away any of his hard-earned money to please them. No! 
 no! he wasn't such a born idiot as that, he could tell them. 
 
 There never was such a man for bargains as that poor Sir 
 Luke Sharpe. Whatever he was in the habit of using, he 
 bought in such quantities, to save a shilling or two, that before 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 239 
 
 he could use one half, the other was all rotten, and positively 
 good for nothing. For instance, in the spare room at the top 
 of the house, there were no less than fifty sinumbral lampsy 
 which he had picked up at the sale of a bankrupt's stock, ibr 
 something under ten shillings a-piece — not because he wanted 
 them, but merely because he was satisfied they never could 
 have been made under a guinea; and, as he said, they would 
 be very nice things to give to his children when they settled in 
 life. Again, in one of the cupboards in his bed-room, he had 
 a tremendous pile of little cheap pocket telescopes. He had 
 gone to buy one previous to his going down to the sea- side, and 
 had been tempted to take fifteen dozen — as he would never have 
 the chance of meeting with such a bargain again, and he could 
 get double the money for them any day. Then if he had 
 one bundle of pencils, I'm sure he must have had twenty or 
 thirty gross of those nasty common cheap things, that are as 
 hard as bits of wire, and directly you put them in your mouth, 
 go into a nasty black paste, like moist stick liquorice. As for 
 steel pens ! oh, dear, it was positively awful. I declare he'd as 
 many as would have kept the whole of the clerks of the Bank 
 of England going till the national debt is paid off. In old 
 iron alone, they would have been a little property. Once he 
 had been told that there was no umbrella for the servants. 
 What did he do, but the very next day he brought home a 
 whole cabful of light blue and green cotton things, with nasty 
 transparent horn beaks for handles. As usual, he had picked 
 them up " dirt cheap;" and, indeed, he added, with extreme 
 glee, he hadn't lived all the time he had in the world to go 
 giving five shillings for gingham umbrellas, when by merely 
 paying ready money and taking a quantity, he could get them 
 for something like one and fivepence halfpenny a piece. 
 
 I had not been in the house a week before, calling me into 
 the study, Sir Luke, in a very serious way told me, " he did not 
 like to see me going out in the rain with merely that trumpery 
 little parasol of mine over my head." Then half jokingly he 
 added, " Now if I make you a present of a good strong ser- 
 viceable umbrella, will you promise me to take care of it?" 
 All I could do was to smile, and thank him, and say, it was 
 very kind of him — of course expecting that he was at least 
 going to make me a present of a nice slim, genteel-looking, 
 
240 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 silk German one, that he had brought home on purpose to 
 surprise me. But he went to the cupboard under the book- 
 case, and brought out a nasty corpulent cotton thing, with a 
 brass ring round its middle, almost big enough for a parrot 
 to swing in. Of course, I was obliged to be pleased with it; 
 but bother the thing, every time I went out in the rain, it did 
 swell and swell so, that at last, any body to have looked at it, 
 would have thought that it was an umbrella in an interesting 
 situation, and about to be confined of two bouncing little 
 parasols at least. 
 
 Next to Sir Luke's love of bargains, I think the most 
 marked trait in his character was his hatred of beggars and 
 cabmen. " Out of pure principle," he said, he never gave a 
 penny to a man in the streets. Charity, he told me, might be 
 a great virtue, but we lived in enlightened times, and political 
 economy had taught us that nothing was so bad as almsgiving; 
 and indeed, that men, as well as institutions, should be " self- 
 supporting." " He never found anybody give him anything," 
 he said; " then why on earth," in the same breath he asked 
 me, " should he go giving his hard-earned money to sup- 
 port a large family of ten hired children? No, no; he wasn't 
 a ninny to be gulled in that way, and if people took him 
 for a fool, they were mistaken." So he subscribed to the 
 Mendicity Society, and always carried a quantity of the 
 cheques for soup in his trousers'-pockets; for, as he said, ' ; the 
 scoundrels didn't like that, and, thank God, he was now so 
 well known in London that no beggar ever asked him for a 
 halfpenny." 
 
 But if he was well known by the beggars, the cabmen 
 of London knew him equally well — or, at least, it was no 
 fault of Sir Luke's if they did not. He had summoned so 
 many drivers to the police-offices, that at last the reports in 
 the morning papers got to be headed, " Sir Luke Sharpe 
 and the Cabmen again!" He knew, to a lamp-post, the 
 very extreme of every shilling fare, and he was never known 
 to take a cab beyond it, for — however far he had to go — he 
 would get out and walk the remainder of the distance. If 
 the driver asked more than the shilling, Sir Luke would take 
 down the number of the cab in his pocket-book, then pull 
 out the little book of fares he always carried with him, and 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARHIED. 241 
 
 having shown the man he was entitled to no more, he would 
 tender him a handful of silver, and beg of him to take as 
 much as he liked. Over and over again on a wet clay, when 
 cabs were worth almost any money, has the worthy baronet, 
 with his pocket-book in one hand and his pencil in the 
 other, gone down a whole stand, saying, " Corner of Lang- 
 ham-place for a shilling;" and then to each driver as he ob- 
 jected to the job, " Do you refuse to take me? Do you refuse 
 to take me? Do you refuse to take me?" and so on, until he 
 had got the numbers down of the whole stand, ready for sum- 
 moning on the morrow. Positively, his whole life seemed to 
 be one round of warfare with the cabmen and beggars ot 
 London. Either he was laying traps with the officers of the 
 Mendicity Society to catch the begging -letter impostors, or 
 else the best part of his day was spent at a police-office, dis- 
 puting as to whether he ought to have paid one shilling, or 
 one-and-fourpence, for the distance he had ridden. I do 
 believe Sir Luke had had the half of London measured into 
 shilling fares on his own account. 
 
 The first day that I was at Portland-place, Sir Luke dined 
 at home in his little back parlour. Rosetta, the upper 
 nursery-maid, told me, " it was a perfect wonder, and the 
 first time he'd done as much these six months; and she didn't 
 know what poor Cook would say to it; but of one thing she 
 was certain, and that was, Cook wouldn't be best pleased." 
 But what was more strange than all was, that about seven 
 o'clock Sir Luke requested his housekeeper — that overgrown 
 Miss Botty, whom people would annoy me by calling a 
 fine woman — to step up to the school-room, and ask me to 
 bring the children down to dessert. No sooner had she — in a 
 way I didn't half like — delivered her message to me, than 
 she turned round to the nurse, and pretending to be all the 
 while speaking to her, said, in a nasty sneering tone, " Dear 
 me, I don't know what's come to us just now, getting so fond 
 as we are of our children all of a sudden ! Formerly we used 
 to take our chop at Tom's, and, on our way home, drop into 
 the theatre, at half-price, to see the last new burlesque. But 
 now, bless us and save us! nothing will satisfy us but we 
 must go dining at home and turning the house topsy-turvy, 
 so as to be able to have our dear children, with their new 
 
242 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 governess, round us at dessert time! Augli!" she added, to 
 nurse, with a shudder, " I can't abear such iicklemindedness; 
 and if I do like one gentleman more than another, it is one 
 who has something like system in his conduct, and isn't led 
 away by every new face he sees." 
 
 I knew very well what all this meant. To tell the truth, 
 the housekeeper and I had had a slight quarrel in the morn- 
 ing. The fact of it was, she was too grand by half to please 
 me. She wanted to be called Miss Botty, and I wasn't going 
 to give in to any such nonsense. It was very well for her to 
 make the servants do so; she was their superior, and, per- 
 haps, it was right. But as /couldn't help looking upon her 
 as my inferior, both by birth and education, (her mother 
 indeed had kept a dairy in Camden Town,) why of course I 
 wasn't going to call her by any other name than Sir Luke 
 did, and that was Susan. Moreover, I had given my grand 
 lady to understand that I was not going to have the children's 
 dinner brought up at any hour she might please, as I had been 
 informed she was in the habit of doing. Indeed, I had told 
 her very plainly, that if I could not have it on table by 
 two to a moment, I should speak to Sir Luke about it. So 
 of course we were both at daggers drawn. 
 
 And to be candid, I never did — not even from the first — 
 half like the look of my lady. I'm sure when I saw my 
 duchess dressed out in her brown satins, and her sandals, and 
 fly-away caps, and silk mittens, I'm sure I thought she was 
 some member of the family. " Sir Luke's sister, may be," I said 
 to myself, as I bowed and curtsied, and called her " madam." 
 But no sooner did I learn from the upper nurse that I had 
 been bowing and scraping to a common housekeeper, as if she 
 had been some lady of quality, than I did get so disgusted 
 with the creature for dressing in the nasty, flaunting, vulgar 
 style she did, that I said to myself, " Well, I never saw such 
 goings on, and if you expect that I'm going to put up with 
 any such airs, I can tell you you will find yourself mis- 
 taken, my grand Miss Botty." 
 
 When I had heard, too, all the dreadful tales that the two 
 nursery-maids had got against the creature, I declare it quite 
 made the blood run all cold down my back, to think that I had 
 been cringing and fawning to a trumpery upstart like her. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 243 
 
 And as I learnt from the maids that my lady's weak point was 
 to be called Miss Botty, why I determined from that moment 
 that she should never get anything but mere plain " Susan" 
 from me. Indeed, I kept Susaning her so often that day, 
 that at last my duchess turned upon her heel, and walked 
 away. " Ob, very well!" I said to myself, quite delighted — 
 " oh, very well! now I shall know how to act; and since 
 matters have come to this, why we will see who is to be 
 mistress in this house. For you may take my word for it, 
 either you or I shall quit it before many weeks are over my 
 head, and I'm sure for myself I don't care two pins which 
 it is." 
 
 Well, so matters stood between "Miss Botty" and myself, 
 when she had the impudence to make those nasty insidious 
 remarks of hers to nurse. A mere vulgar mushroom like 
 her, to dare to insinuate that I had any designs upon that 
 poor grey-headed Sir Luke Sharpe who was old enough 
 to be my grandfather. I, indeed! ha! ha! when I could 
 scarcely bear the sight of the conceited, mean old man. " I'm 
 sure if he had gone down on his knees to me," I said to 
 myself at the time, " and begged me to have him, promising 
 to settle half of his immense property upon me, I would pretty 
 soon have shown him whether I had yet sunk so low as to be 
 desirous of marrying a man with one foot already in the grave* 
 Besides, I understood very well, from all I had heard, who it 
 was that was wheedling and carneying the poor old man over 
 to her own wicked purposes. Where, I should like to know, 
 did all those fine silks and satins come from? I was as well 
 aware as most people how far money could be made to go, 
 and I was well aware of this into the bargain — viz., that no 
 housekeeper — I don't care who she is — could afford, out of her 
 wages, to dress in the way that woman did. — Of an afternoon, 
 I declare I never saw my lady with a gown to her back that 
 had cost less than seven or eight shillings a yard, and she 
 must have taken eleven breadths to her skirt, if she took a 
 nail. 
 
 So, as the spiteful creature had chosen to make out that it 
 was the "pretty governess" that was wanted, and not the 
 dear children, " why," I said to myself, as I put a clean 
 pinafore on each of the pets — " why, the pretty governess 
 
244 "WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 will see whether she can't have you out of the house, Miss, 
 before you are many weeks older. If Sir Luke is so much 
 taken with me, we'll soon find out whether i" in my turn 
 can't wheedle and carney him over to do what i" want — and 
 that is, to give you notice to quit, my fine lady." To have 
 the impudence to insinuate to a common nursery-maid that I 
 wanted to marry the old dotard! Marry him, indeed! as I 
 said before, I'd as soon think of marrying my grandfather — 
 and every one knows that is forbidden by the common-prayer. 
 
 "When I got down stairs, I soon found out that "Miss Botty " 
 was right as to the cause of this sudden affection on the part 
 of the old baronet for my little chicks; for I declare he did 
 nothing but speak to me, and never noticed one of his chil- 
 dren, even though I had got little Peggy by my side, and 
 with my two hands was smoothing her beautiful bright auburn 
 hair. Having poured out a glass of wine for me, Sir Luke 
 told me he should like me to come down with the little ones 
 every evening, and let him see how they were getting on. 
 " Indeed I have always," he had the barefaced impudence to 
 add, " made it a rule in my house to have my dear children 
 round me at dessert every evening." Then taking hold of my 
 hand, he added, " Now promise me, my dear, good Mrs. 
 Dawdle, you'll look after Alick's arithmetic, will you, for I'm 
 afraid it's been sadly neglected, and I do so want him to learn 
 book-keeping by double entry, for with that I know a man 
 may do anything in the world he pleases; and many and 
 many's the time I'd have given my head if my poor old father 
 had taught it me. Now, my dear young lady, do drink 
 some wine!"' 
 
 1 No, I thank you, Sir Luke, — I have plenty, I can assure 
 you. Indeed, even now I have exceeded my usual quantity — 
 only yours is such very delicious sherry," I answered, putting 
 my arm round Alick's neck. 
 
 "Yes, it is, mam," he answered, filling up his glass; " I 
 picked it up quite a bargain — I took a dozen pipes of it as 
 a bad debt, though when on earth I shall ever drink all I've 
 got down stairs, is more than I can tell. As to the girls," he 
 said, — re verting to the education question, — " I should like you 
 to look after their music, because, you know, with houses 
 breaking as they do every day in the City, there's no knowing 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED, 245 
 
 what may happen. And if the worst should come to the 
 worst, you see they can always get a living at it, and I think 
 nothing is so fine in a woman as to be " self-supporting." 
 What's more, I recollect seeing a little chit on board one of 
 the penny boats, playing the harp, and you'd have been 
 astonished, Mrs. Dawdle, to see the amount of money she 
 picked up, even between Westminster and Waterloo Bridges; 
 though to be sure she seemed to be very clever at it, and to 
 have a particularly good head upon her shoulders." 
 
 "Oh yes, Sir Luke," I answered, "you may depend upon 
 it, I will pay great attention to my dear little pupils. Indeed, 
 I have great hopes of that darling Janet. Really she seems 
 to have all her father's natural quickness, and that you know 
 is such a great thing for her." 
 
 "Ah! Mrs. Dawdle," the conceited thing replied, "I've 
 not walked through the world all my life with my eyes shut, 
 I can tell you. No ! no ! I've had something better to do than 
 to sit all day in my arm-chair, twiddling my finger and thumb. 
 Dear, dear ! when I come to think of what I was and what 
 I am, it does seem to me that I'm about the most wonderful 
 man ever born! But my principle through life, you see, 
 has always been to be " self-supporting," and that indeed I 
 should like all my children to be. And now there's another 
 thing I want you particularly to attend to. You know, Latin 
 and Greek, and French and Italian, and all such outlandish 
 dead languages sound very pretty, and make a great show in 
 the drawing-room; but to my mind, education ought to be 
 practical, and it strikes me you know that, for the sake of 
 teaching children something that they may never want to 
 use, we very often neglect to teach them the very things they 
 may be likely to want everyday. So I'll tell you what I should 
 like you to do; why, to make them get off by heart a page of 
 Mogg's pocket edition of cab fares, and every Friday I myself 
 will examine them in it — d'ye understand?" 
 
 " Oh, there ! won't that be kind of your dear papa," I 
 cried, enthusiastically looking at the little inanimate Scotch 
 things; "and it will do you such a deal of good, you know, 
 my pets." 
 
 " Ah! the pounds upon pounds it has saved me, there's no 
 telling," replied the old man. Then, half laughing, he added, 
 
246 "WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 *' but the vagabonds of cabmen know it's no use trying to 
 impose upon me now, for they've found out by this time 
 that I wasn't born yesterday. Well, and are you pretty 
 comfortable up-stairs, eh?" 
 
 "Yes, thank you, sir, very comfortable, I'm sure; in fact, 
 rery much so indeed, thank you," I replied, bowing. 
 
 " Because if you a'n't, you know, you've only got to speak," 
 lie answered, emptying another glass. Then he added, in- 
 quiringly, " By-the-bye, are the fire-irons to your grate up- 
 stairs all right? because if they are not, I've got upwards of 
 thirty sets of beautiful bran new brass ones in the cupboard 
 in my dressing-room. I picked them up quite a bargain, 
 or else, of course, I should never have thought of lumbering 
 myself with such a number. Two shillings a set, I think, I 
 paid for them — however, I've got the bill somewhere about 
 here — but I'm sure it wasn't more than half-a-crown; and 
 yet those vagabonds in the shops, you know, have the im- 
 pudence to ask you as much as seven and six. Ah ! but they 
 must live a few years longer before they can take me in. 
 Sir Luke Sharpe knows what's -what, he can tell 'em! So 
 you're all comfortable up-stairs, eh?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, Sir Luke," I answered, bowing as before. " We 
 are as comfortable as we can be, thanks to you and your 
 housekeeper. By-the-bye, what a very nice, obliging crea- 
 ture she is," I continued, determined to find out which way 
 the land lay. 
 
 " Yes — she is — a very nice, good, well-disposed soul," he 
 replied — though far from enthusiastically. " It's true, she 
 presumes a bit sometimes, but I think, do you know, she 
 means very well!" 
 
 "Well!" I continued, " that's just what I should have ex- 
 pected from one whose education has been so sadly neglected 
 as hers. But, as you say, I have no doubt she means very 
 well — though, like all persons in her calling, they've a strange 
 way of showing it." 
 
 " Yes, now I've given her notice to quit several times," he 
 replied; "but, hang it, just before the month's up, she comes 
 crying to me, saying, that if she goes away from me, she 
 knows it will be the death of her, and that she had never 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 247 
 
 respected any one so much as she did ine, for I am such a 
 wonderful man." 
 
 " Indeed!" I answered, taking Alick on my knee, and not 
 a little disgusted at the mean way that I now saw Miss Botty 
 had been playing her cards. " She must be a woman of 
 very deep feeling, or else a person of the most abominable 
 deceit, which I should never believe of her, I'm sure." 
 
 " Oh, no," he replied, smiling, "it isn't deceit. Deceit! — 
 Egad! I should like to catch the man or woman that would 
 deceive me. Come! come! I haven't lived all this time and 
 had all my experience for nothing, I can tell you. No, I 
 really think the woman has a great respect for me. Still I 
 fancy, in the end, I shall be obliged to part with her. Now, 
 to-day," he added, as he sipped his fifth glass, " upon my 
 word, she looked as black as thunder because I came home 
 to dinner. I suppose next I shall be obliged to ask her 
 whether it's convenient for me to enter my own doors before 
 midnight." 
 
 " Dear me," I said, laughingly. " Well, that is certainly 
 most extraordinary conduct; but you should remember, Sir 
 Luke, that a person who has not received the education of a 
 lady can't be expected always to know their proper station. 
 Indeed, from all I can see, Susan seems to have been very 
 low bred." 
 
 " Well, perhaps she may be," he answered, " though I 
 haven't remarked as much myself; and yet that's strange too, 
 for I'm generally considered to have a very quick eye that way. 
 Bless you, girl! I can generally see through a person at half 
 a glance," he said, as he rose to put some coals upon the fire. 
 
 " Allow me, Sir Luke," I cried, jumping up, and running 
 to the scuttle; " pray don't exert yourself in that way." 
 
 " Exert myself!" he exclaimed, scornfully. " Why, I sup- 
 pose you fancy because I've got grey hair that I can't lift a 
 trumpery coal-scuttle. Well, now look here — can you do 
 this?" he continued, holding out the poker at his arm's 
 length. " Ah! that's muscle for you, if you like! There's not 
 many people can manage that at my time of life, I can tell 
 you. You little know what a wonderful man I am, take 
 me all together." 
 
248 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " Dear me ! that is very extraordinary. Well, you are a 
 wonderful man to be sure, Sir Luke," I replied, throwing up 
 my hands. Then, as I could see him wheel his easy chair 
 round to the fire, and begin to yawn and prepare for his 
 evening nap. I told the children to go and kiss their dear 
 papa, and wish him good night, and then took my farewell of 
 him, saying, I would not intrude upon his valuable time any 
 longer. 
 
 After this conversation, Sir Luke and myself got to be 
 better friends. He dined at home regularly every day, and the 
 servants made a point of always wondering, in my presence, 
 what could be the cause of the change. As for " Miss Botty," 
 as she was called, we soon grew to be such enemies, that I 
 was obliged to beg of her to keep to her own room, and 
 not to think of intruding in mine. With Sir Luke, I 
 knew the only way to deal, was to make him as comfortable 
 as I could, and appear to have the highest veneration for his 
 talents and shrewdness. And while Miss Botty was, by her 
 familiarity, losing every day more and more of whatever 
 hold she might once have had upon the baronet, I, by my 
 show of respect and admiration for his character, was every 
 day gaining more and more of his confidence and esteem. 
 
 Moreover, there was such a visible alteration in his children, 
 that at last Sir Luke really began to admire and like them, 
 because other people did. I always took good care to tell 
 him whenever people stopped them in the streets to ask whose 
 children they were; for, to tell the truth, I got them on so 
 nicely, and kept them so clean, that w r hereas in their former 
 neglected state they looked almost repulsive, now they really 
 seemed very attractive and interesting little things. Then, 
 again, a great point with me was, never to let them annoy Sir 
 Luke. Whenever he was at home, I always played with them, 
 or told them tales, or did a hundred little things, to prevent 
 them crying or making noise enough to disturb him. Alick I 
 taught to draw; and when I had touched up his rude sketches 
 a good bit myself, upon my word they looked very clever 
 indeed, for him. The girls I set to work at embroidery. In 
 less than a month, with my helping them, they had done a 
 beautiful kettle-holder of " Mind it boils," and a very 
 handsome and appropriate pen-w T iper, of a butterfly with a 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 249 
 
 pair of large black cloth wings, so that the ink would not 
 show upon them — together with a splendid pair of rainbow- 
 tinted slippers, which I got the shoemaker to make up. 
 
 When we presented them to Sir Luke, he was so pleased that 
 he gave the children all the halfpence he had in his pocket. 
 He was very particular, too, in asking me what each of the 
 articles could be bought in the shops for. When I told him 
 I was certain the slippers alone could not be purchased for less 
 than twelve or fourteen shillings, he was quite astounded; and 
 when I added, that Meggie had only been a month over them, 
 he went into a slight calculation to himself, and said that, 
 when he was her age, he never had been able to earn so 
 much money as that per week; and he praised me, by saying 
 great credit was due to me for making his children so " self- 
 supporting" as they were so soon. " So," Sir Luke continued, 
 "as they had been so good, he supposed he must give them 
 some reward;" and accordingly he presented them all with 
 one of his small pocket-telescopes a-piece; and afterwards 
 he gave me one of the trumpery things, telling me I should 
 find it a very pleasant companion at the nursery -window; for 
 I should be able to see Highgate and the people on the top of 
 Primrose-hill with it, as plainly as if they were- only on the 
 other side of the way; and that whilst I was sitting quietly up- 
 stairs — in Portland-place — I might fancy myself a hundred 
 miles away in the country. 
 
 Every lady knows the truth of the old saying, " that the 
 best way to a man's heart is down his throat." Accordingly, 
 I determined to gain my point with Sir Luke by making him 
 a present of several valuable receipts I had in my posses- 
 sion. I soon found out that my gentleman was particularly 
 partial to what are called " the good things cf this world." 
 If he dined on merely a chop at home, it was not from any love 
 of such simple fare, but because he was positively afraid to in- 
 dulge in anything richer. He had always made it a matter 
 of duty never to miss a dinner at any one of the city com- 
 panies or corporations of which he was a member, and from 
 an over-love of " the excesses of the table," he had so ruined 
 his stomach in his zeal for his civic duties, that his present 
 abstinence was more compulsory than voluntary. Occasion- 
 ally, to be sure, the sight of some well-known luxury would 
 
250 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 be too much for him, and he would break out into all the in- 
 temperance of turtle and cold punch. For this, though, he 
 would have to do penance between the sheets, until he fancied 
 his favourite pill, powder, or potion, for the time being, had 
 set him on his legs again. Pines and champagne over night 
 were followed by blue pills and black draughts in the morn- 
 ing. Indeed, he now knew so well what he had to undergo 
 for any little dainty, that he almost feared to touch anything 
 beyond a plain chop or steak, and if he did, he would keep 
 telling you, as he smacked his lips over the treat, " he should 
 suffer for it finely in the morning." 
 
 Consequently, I soon saw that the poor Scotch Baronet was 
 so tired of his eternal chop and steak, (he had dined at home 
 every day as yet,) that if any one could devise any new and 
 innocent relish lor him, he would be so grateful for the 
 toothsome change, that he would do almost anything in re- 
 turn; " and then," as I said to myself, "I'd take good care 
 and see whether I couldn't open the poor old man's eyes 
 or not to the wicked goings on and shameful neglect of that 
 disgusting Miss Botty." 
 
 One day I would send Sir Luke home from the butcher's as 
 beautiful a sweetbread as ever I saw. On another, I would 
 forward, from the fishmonger's, round the corner, with my 
 compliments, as fresh and sweet a piece of scate as any Chris- 
 tian need sit down to. Then of an evening, sometimes I 
 would make him a nice large basinful of hot white wine whey, 
 or else I w r ould beg his acceptance of a box of Brockedon's 
 " Patent Bi-carbonate of Soda Lozenges," in a little pet of 
 a box that was itself alone well worth the money. Some- 
 times I was positive he was falling away by inches, and would 
 alarm him by saying that " unless he took good strengthening 
 food, I would not take upon myself to answer for the conse- 
 quences, and that he really should bestow a thought upon 
 those poor dear little children of his." Accordingly, I Avould 
 prevail upon him to take just a mouthful of the beautiful 
 light cow-heel I had provided for his supper. If I heard 
 him complain of the rheumatism, or lumbago, or gout, I 
 wouldn't let a day pass over without buying him a thirteen- 
 penny-halfpenny bottle of " Borthwick's Tincture," of which 
 I had heard so much. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 251 
 
 But it was no such very easy task to please so fanciful a 
 gentleman. If, after dinner, he felt at all indisposed, it was 
 certain to arise from something he had eaten. Once I had 
 got him a delicious piece of real Scotch short-bread, for des- 
 sert, as a great treat, and, upon my word, if he didn't declare 
 immediately afterwards that it had given him the heart-burn, 
 and made out he had a pack of little stars floating about 
 before his eyes. But I told him I was convinced it wasn't the 
 short-bread, for that was mere flour and butter, with an egg 
 or two — and a little sugar, may be; "but, of course," I said, 
 " if he would drink glass after glass of wine, as he did, how 
 could he expect to be well;" adding, "really he should take 
 more care of himself, and pay more attention to diet than he 
 did, for we could not spare him yet." The next day he 
 wouldn't drink any wine at all; and then, upon my word, if 
 he didn't try to make out that some of the beautiful Tomato 
 sauce I had got expressly for him, had disagreed with him, 
 vowing that it would lay him on his back for a month, " he 
 shouldn't wonder." So I very plainly told him that it was 
 perfectly ridiculous his fancying a tea-spoonful or two of 
 the very best Tomato sauce that could be had for love or 
 money, could have any such bad effects; but, I said, "if he 
 would go leaving off wine in the sudden way he had, espe- 
 cially after having been accustomed to it so long, of course 
 he must expect to feel unwell. It positively was unkind of 
 him," I added, " to go to such violent extremes, and that 
 really he ought not to trifle with his digestion in the way he 
 did, for he should remember he had other people to live for, 
 and what would become of the dear little pets up-stairs, with- 
 out a mother to take care of them, was more than I could 
 tell." 
 
 At last, to my great joy, Sir Luke told me, one evening, 
 that I was quite a treasure to him, and he didn't know what 
 on earth he should do without me; and after a deal of 
 hemming and hahing, he said he should take it as a great 
 favour if I would, every morning, after I had heard the 
 children their lessons, go out marketing for him, and see what 
 nice little harmless relish I could pick up for him at any 
 of the tradespeople's. But I very respectfully declined, saying 
 I had no wish to interfere with his housekeeper's duties. It 
 
 s2 
 
252 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 was in vain lie told me not to mind her, but only to attend to 
 him, for I said I wouldn't, for the world, breed any dissen- 
 sion in the house, and that Susan — though she seemed one 
 of the most worthy creatures I had ever met with — was 
 such a horrid temper, that I really trembled lest she should 
 turn round in a huff, and give notice to leave; and if she went, 
 it would be such a loss to him, he knew. However, Sir Luke 
 did speak to that Miss Botty, who answered in her nasty 
 way — " Oh! dear me, yes, certainly! I'm sure I'm delighted 
 to think Mrs. Dawdle is so attentive to you, Sir Luke." And 
 then she begged to assure him it was quite ridiculous to fancy 
 she should be in the least hurt at the interference by such 
 a person as Mrs. Dawdle. Oh, dear no! — quite the con- 
 trary, she was highly pleased at the idea. 
 
 I was determined to take my lady at her word, little, I 
 dare say, as she expected it ; and to market I went, and 
 sent the worthy Baronet home as nice and wholesome a 
 dinner as he'd ever sat down to. But when Sir Luke re- 
 turned from the city to partake of it, what was my horror at 
 finding there was not so much as the cloth laid. " Goodness, 
 gracious !" exclaimed that Miss Botty, when she was asked 
 about it, " why, of course I expected, as Mrs. Dawdle had 
 stepped out to order the dinner, that she would have stepped 
 down -stairs to cook it as well." So poor Sir Luke, after 
 having given " warning" to the cook, saying it was her place 
 to have arranged differently, had, after all, to get his dinner 
 at the nearest hotel. 
 
 This puzzled me more than anything, for I could not make 
 out why Sir Luke didn't give Miss Botty warning, instead 
 of the poor cook, who had only done as she had been told. 
 " Ah," thought I to myself, " there's more in this than I know 
 of; but this at least I do know — and that is, either that bad 
 woman or myself shall quit Sir Luke's establishment before 
 we are either of us many weeks older." 
 
 In fact, the next evening I spoke very freely to Sir Luke 
 on the subject, and didn't hesitate to say I thought his kind- 
 ness was quite thrown away upon a person like Susan, and 
 that I was certain he would never be comfortable as long as 
 she was in the house. But he would have it that it was only 
 her way, and that the woman meant nothing by it ; and after 
 she had lived with him so long as she had, why he'd sooner 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 253 
 
 put up with her little tantrums than change; in fact, Susan, 
 he said, seemed to be very much attached to him, for she 
 knew she couldn't find such a master as he was every day 
 of the week; nor more she would too, he knew very well, for 
 there were very few men like him, he could tell me. 
 
 " But do you know, Sir Luke," I replied, shaking my 
 head, " I am so dreadfully afraid she's a double-faced woman. 
 All I can say is, I only hope to goodness she's not taking 
 advantage of your kindness to deceive you." 
 
 " Deceive me !" he cried, bursting out laughing — " ha, ha, 
 ha! Deceive me ! — well, that is delicious. No, no! the 
 woman isn't born yet that can do that, I can tell you. Why, 
 even the men can't; and do you think old Luke Sharpe is 
 such a donkey as to be taken in by a woman? Ha! ha! catch 
 a weasel asleep; I'm too old a bird, I can assure you, to be 
 caught with any of Miss Botty's chaff. And what's more, 
 she knows as well as I do that I've got a head upon my 
 shoulders, I can tell you, and wasn't born yesterday;" and 
 lie rattled the halfpence again in his pocket as he fell back in 
 his chair, and laughed at the bare idea of any one imposing 
 upon him. 
 
 "Very true, very true, I quite forgot that," I answered, 
 smiling; " it would indeed be a difficult thing to deceive one 
 who can see so deep into the human heart as you can, Sir 
 Luke. But now, pray, do take a glass of that delicious calf s- 
 foot jelly. It will do that nasty cold of yours so much good; 
 and you know the doctor himself said, in my presence, that 
 you were to have your food little, and often, and good> or else 
 something serious might happen. And I'm sure," I added, 
 with a sigh, " we cannot afford to lose so kind and much- 
 respected a gentleman as you are." 
 
 " Good girl, good girl ! Well, perhaps it would be 
 awkward to a good many if I was to pop off," he said, sipping 
 the jelly with great relish. " What they would do in the 
 city without me I'm sure I can't say. Pretty rumpus there 
 would be at the India House in a short time. Dear, dear! 
 when I come to think of what I am and what I was, it does 
 seem to me like a dream. Well, all I can say about it is, 
 I'm one of the most wonderful men that ever lived." 
 
 " And so I'm sure you are, Sir Luke," I said to the con- 
 ceited old thing — " a very wonderful man indeed." 
 
254 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 "'You may well say that, my dear Mrs. Dawdle," was all 
 he answered, simpering over his calf's foot. 
 
 Oh, I had no patience with the vain, weak-minded old 
 silly ! 'Pon my word, any one with their senses about them 
 might have done anything with him — either by flattering or 
 feeding him. Miss Botty could twist him round her little 
 finger, and I could do just the very same; and yet he talked 
 about no woman being able to impose upon him. Pshaw ! 
 
 My last compliment and jelly had put the old thing in such 
 an excellent humour, that I thought I might as well present 
 him with the copy of " Buchan's Domestic Medicine," which 
 I had picked up, a day or two before, at an old book-stall, 
 and in the fly-leaf of which I had written — 
 
 To Sir Luke Sharpe, 
 
 From the humblest of his admirers, 
 
 With earnest prayers for his better health. 
 
 No sooner did he see the title, than he declared it was the 
 very book of all others he had long wanted to get hold of, for 
 lie had heard his old aunt say it w T as a first-rate work, and he 
 did not see the fun of paying his apothecary round the corner 
 the sum he did every year. 
 
 "Very strange, isn't it?" he said, smiling; "I've often 
 said I would treat myself to a copy of this very work, but 
 unfortunately I never could stumble over a cheap copy of 
 it at the book-stalls. Now what did you give for this, 
 eh?" he asked, looking to see if the price was marked on the 
 inside of the cover. 
 
 But I had been too deep for my gentleman, and taken good 
 care to put a figure " one" before the five-and-sixpence, 
 which had been penciled there as the cost of the book. 
 
 "What! fifteen-and-sixpence, eh?" he continued, opening 
 his big eyes; "well, and now I come to think of it, it's not 
 at all dear. I don't suppose one of my clerks could even copy 
 it in less than a month. I'm sure I shouldn't like to write all 
 this for fifteen shillings, or to get it done either. The paper 
 alone must have cost something. But you mustn't go 
 throwing your money away for me; so here's a sovereign for 
 you, and the remainder will buy you a yard or two of ribbon 
 for your trouble." As I smiled and thanked him, he con- 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 255 
 
 tinued — " Well, it certainly is a very nice book, and I'll 
 tell you now what we'll do. After you've got the children 
 to bed, I'll get you to come down here and read a chapter or 
 two of it to me every evening, and then I shall be able to 
 find out whatever is the matter with me; for all I know is, 
 that I have been very far from right this long time; and, 
 what's more, I don't half like it." 
 
 Accordingly, I declare, if I hadn't to go down stairs every 
 evening, and read a dozen or two of pages out of that filthy 
 book, which positively was as dry as eating so much saw- 
 dust, while that stupid old Sir Luke, with his head upon his 
 shoulders, would keep fancying he had got each disease, as fast 
 as I read the symptoms of it out to him. The first evening 
 I left him perfectly satisfied that he was going to have a violent 
 attack of apoplexy, and that before many weeks were over 
 his head he would pop off suddenly in his easy chair. The 
 next evening he told me, with a sorrowful expression, that he 
 was convinced his brain was softening, and that most likely 
 he should end his days as a drivelling idiot. Upon my word, 
 at last I myself grew quite frightened. On the third evening, 
 he sat in his arm-chair, close to the fire, with his dressing- 
 gown on, and speaking in a faint voice, said — 
 
 " Let me see, dear, dear, we've finished with the B.'s and 
 have got to do the C.'s to-night; so if you will be so kind, 
 Mrs. Dawdle, as to run over the articles in the index under 
 that letter, you will do me so much good you don't know. 
 Oh! dear, whatever can be the matter with me?" 
 
 Accordingly, I began reading as he desired — " Cancer, 
 candied orange-peel, carrots (to be eaten young), casualties, 
 cataplasm discutient, cataract." 
 
 "Cataract!" he cried out immediately I said the word. 
 " Stop there! I'm nearly certain I've got that. It's all very 
 well for people to say that those little stars I have so fre- 
 quently floating about before my eyes, arise merely from in- 
 digestion, but I know better. I've noticed, for a long time, 
 my eyes are getting weaker and weaker, and that my sight's 
 going as fast as it can. Oh ! dear, dear, I know it's cataract 
 coming on. I am so much obliged to you for that book, 
 my good girl. Whatever I should have done without it is 
 more than I can tell. But go on, my good creature; what 
 does it say? — cataract, cataract." 
 
256 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 " A cataract," I said, reading in a loud, solemn voice, " is 
 an obstruction of the pupil " 
 
 " Of course," he interrupted me — "that's just what I've 
 got; but go on, that's a good soul." 
 
 " By the interposition of some opaque substance, which 
 either diminishes," I continued reading, " or totally extin- 
 guishes the sight." 
 
 " Good heavens!" he exclaimed, throwing up his hands in 
 agony, " and so it will mine, I'll be bound, before I'm many 
 weeks older." 
 
 " When the cataract becomes firm," I went on, " it must 
 be couched, or rather extracted." 
 
 "Ugh! don't — don't!" he cried out, shuddering. "Oh! 
 what a frightful thing it seems to be !" 
 
 " In a recent or beginning cataract, the same medicines 
 are to be used as in the Gutta Serena." 
 
 " And what on earth is the Gutter Serener?" he asked, 
 anxiously. " Turn to that, my dear child. It's something 
 dreadful, Til be bound. I shouldn't wonder, now, if that's 
 my complaint, after all, and that my eyes are guttering away 
 as fast as they can." 
 
 " Gutta Serena, or Amaurosis," I again read, as soon as 
 I had found out the place, " is an abolition of the sight with- 
 out any apparent cause or fault in the eyes." 
 
 "Just my case; nobody can see any fault in my eyes, 
 I know. Oh! dear, dear; but go on! let's know the worst; 
 there's some satisfaction in that, at least." 
 
 " When it is owing to decay, or wasting of the optic nerve," 
 I continued, quite horrified, " it does not admit of a cure." 
 
 " O—o — oh! goodness gracious me!" he cried, rubbing his 
 bald head with his hands. " Of course it doesn't. I knew it 
 wouldn't. However, perhaps I'm not quite so far gone as that. 
 Does it say if any thing's good for it, my dear?" 
 
 " Yes," I replied, " it says that cupping, with scarifications 
 on the back part of the head, will be found of use; and that 
 runnings at the nose, promoted by volatile salts, stimulating 
 powders, &c, will prove serviceable; but it adds, that the 
 most likely means of all for relieving the patient are, issues 
 or blisters, kept open for a long time behind the ears, or on 
 the back of the neck." 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 257 
 
 " Heaven be praised!" he exclaimed, quite reassured, " I'll 
 try them every one, to-morrow, as sure as my name's Sharpe. 
 There's nothing like decision of character. I've not lived all 
 this time with my eyes shut, I can tell you." 
 
 After this, whilst turning over the pages, I happened to 
 pitch upon the article on Hydrophobia, and very imprudently 
 to read the title out aloud. 
 
 "Hydrophobia!" he cried directly — "hydrophobia! what 
 does it say about that? I was bitten by a dog a long time 
 ago, and I have heard the poison remains in the system for a 
 wonderful long time. Besides, to tell the truth, I've felt 
 rather strange these few days past, and I should like to know 
 what the symptoms are, just to assure myself whether I am 
 all right or not, you know." 
 
 " Few persons," I at once began reading, " have ever been 
 known to survive this the most frightful of all diseases, for 
 though it may be prevented, it has never yet been known to 
 be cured." 
 
 " Ugh!" he said, shuddering; " never mind about that; for 
 goodness sake, don't read on there, but let me know how long 
 it is before the disease makes its appearance." 
 
 " Oh, it says," I replied, referring to the book, " that the 
 poison has often and often lain dormant in the body for a con- 
 siderable period. Indeed, that there is no certainty, unless 
 the bitten part is completely cut out." 
 
 " Of course — of course, and I shall go raving mad, I 
 know," he screamed, writhing about in his chair; " for nothing 
 of the sort was ever done to me. But, for Heaven's sake, let's 
 know what the symptoms are." 
 
 " Why, it says that the development of the rabid symp- 
 toms is rarely immediate. It begins with a slight pain in 
 the scar of the bite, sometimes attended with a chill." 
 
 " Goodness!" he exclaimed, "just my sensations, to a 
 twitch. Upon my word, I haven't been able to get warm all 
 day; but go on! go on! — there can be little or no doubt I've 
 got it now." 
 
 " The patient becomes silent," I continued. 
 
 "Exactly my case," he answered; "only the other day, 
 Jennings, at the Bank, was asking me, in his joking way, 
 whether I was in love or not, for he said I had lost my tongue 
 
258 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 of late. But I see it's coming hydrophobia that's been playing 
 the deuce with me for the whole week past. But go on ! it is 
 such a satisfaction to know what's the matter with you, you 
 can't tell." 
 
 " Frightful dreams disturb his sleep." 
 
 " Dear, dear ! why if I myself had written down my feel- 
 ings, the symptoms couldn't have been more like mine. It 
 was only the other night I dreamt one of the first houses in 
 the city had broke, and let me in for the whole of that cargo 
 of nutmegs. Well, what's next?" 
 
 " The eyes become brilliant, if you please, sir." 
 
 " Just look at mine, will you? — there's a good creature," he 
 asked, staring at me with all his might; " and tell me if they're 
 not very red and bright, for, upon my word, they feel so." 
 
 " Yes, they are rather bright," I replied; " but, then, don't 
 you think, Sir Luke, that might arise from the wine you have 
 taken?" 
 
 " Pooh, pooh ! stuff o' nonsense !" he screamed, in an agony. 
 " Wine! I declare I shudder at the very idea of it, and that I 
 know is one of the symptoms. Ain't I right?" 
 
 "Yes, Sir Luke; it says the patient shudders at the ap- 
 proach of anything liquid or any smooth body." 
 
 " Of course — of course, I told you so," he whined out, 
 faintly; "I shall be raving mad, and end my days with this 
 the most frightful of all diseases, as the book calls it. But 
 surely it must tell one, somewhere, what is the greatest length 
 of time the poison will remain in the body, for it's twelve 
 years since that strange dog flew at my calves, in Grace- 
 church-street?" 
 
 " Oh, well, then, it says here, sir," I answered, full of joy, 
 " that some have indeed gone mad twelve months after being 
 bitten, but seldom later." 
 
 " Rubbish! don't tell me! I know better," he cried, quite in 
 a passion, to think that he was not going to have the hydro- 
 phobia, after all. " What on" earth's the use of people writing 
 books about what they don't understand any more than a 
 child? To tell me I'm not going to have the hydrophobia — 
 nonsense! — I suppose I know how I feel better than they do? 
 But I'll soon put an end to all this wretched doubt, for if I 
 don't send for my apothecary first thing in the morning, 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 259 
 
 why, I'm a Dutchman." And indignantly throwing himself 
 
 back in his chair, the stupid old thing went on muttering to 
 
 himself for half an hour at least. 
 
 ****** 
 
 Upon my word, Sir Luke Sharpe was a most extra- 
 ordinary being. For instance, I happened to tell him that 
 the piano we had in the school-room was so old and out of 
 tune that it was more like a hurdy-gurdy than a grand up- 
 right, and what does he do, but go to one of the manufactories, 
 and buy no less than half-a-dozen instruments, just because 
 they made him the same allowance on taking a quantity, as if 
 he had been in the trade. So I declare we had one in all the 
 principal rooms in the house, and that Miss Botty even 
 felt herself hardly dealt with because I objected to one being 
 put in her room, remarking that it would be impossible for 
 the children to think of practising there. 
 
 Of course there was one in Sir Luke's dingy back parlour, 
 and the consequence was, nothing would please my gentleman 
 but the children must play to him every evening. There he 
 would sit in his easy chair, bobbing his head up and down, 
 while he listened in rapture to the "Battle of Prague," de- 
 claring he never heard anything more " nat'ral" than the cries 
 of the wounded, or else whistling an accompaniment to the 
 " Bird Waltz," the chirruping of which seemed to please him 
 mightily. After my little pets had gone to bed, he would 
 ask me whether I thought any of them would be able to get a 
 living out of the piano; and on my answering in the affirma- 
 tive, he thanked me for having made them so self-supporting 
 so soon, and would wind up by requesting me to play him 
 " a few real good old Scotch airs," as he called them. As I 
 rattled over some of the stupid jerky, jiggy things, he'd 
 throw his silk handkerchief over his head and hum the tune 
 after me, until he dropped off into his evening nap. < 
 
 By these means I soon began to see that Sir Luke would 
 hardly know what to do with himself if I was to leave him. 
 And no wonder, for of an evening I used to make his coffee 
 after dinner, and warm his evening paper for him. Over and 
 over again, too, to save him the trouble of putting on his glasses, 
 I used to read out to him the list of bankrupts, and the shipping 
 intelligence, and the state of the funds, and the share list, and 
 
260 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 spell right through that long prosy money article. Then — 
 wonder of wonders — I at last got him to consent to let me 
 put his nasty dusty old room in order. So I took advantage 
 of his going out of town to see about some trumpery ship of 
 his that had gone ashore on the coast of Ireland, and had all 
 the windows in that dirty back parlour cleaned, and the 
 curtains taken down and beaten, and all the papers well 
 dusted and put in order again. When he came back he was 
 quite astonished. The place did look so light, and everything 
 was so nice and exactly in its proper place, that he declared it 
 seemed to him as if it had been done by magic, and he actually 
 went so far as to add that I was a perfect treasure to him, and 
 that the room hadn't looked so cheerful for he didn't know when. 
 All this of course made that Miss Botty so wild, that she was 
 ready to bite the tips of her fingers off with vexation, and she 
 couldn't even pass me on the stairs without muttering to her- 
 self some nasty, vulgar, insulting remark about me, for which, 
 however, I didn't care two pins, though it made me more and 
 more determined to get her out of the house as fast as I could. 
 At last, I got such power over my " wonderful " gentle- 
 man, with " a head upon his shoulders, who wasn't born yes- 
 terday," and who flattered himself that it was impossible for 
 any woman to get round him, that if, in the course of conver- 
 sation, I merely let drop, quite casually, that I liked to see 
 a gentleman dressed in such and such a fashion, upon my 
 word I declare I should have the stupid old thing, a few 
 days afterwards, figging himself out in the very style I had 
 spoken of in terms of approbation. Once, I recollect saying 
 I thought the Joinville ties sweetly pretty; and lo and be- 
 hold! the very next day the conceited old silly came home 
 with one of them round his neck! At last, to crown the 
 whole, one evening, after dinner, he pulled out a wig-box, 
 and putting on a jet-black " gentleman's real head of hair," 
 asked me if he didn't look much better in it. Of course I 
 couldn't do less than say it became him admirably, though, 
 upon my word, I never saw such a fright as he looked in the 
 stiff, curly, unmistakable thing, which was called "an in- 
 visible peruke." Then, oh dear me! of course, it was my 
 having quietly observed that I liked dark hair that had made 
 him seek the aid of "Professor Browne." He had been 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 261 
 
 forced to do it, he said, to protect himself against the horrid 
 draughts that came whistling all round the back of his poor 
 head at the India House, like so many razors. Besides, he 
 added, he thought a wig looked so much more sightly than 
 those horrid skull-caps, and of course wanted to know if I 
 didn't agree with him. 
 
 Sometimes — soon after this sudden alteration in his cos- 
 tume — I declare if he didn't get talking a pack of nonsense 
 to me, and calling me his dear girl, and taking my hand and 
 squeezing it. But of course I trust I needn't tell my gentle lady 
 readers that I soon put an end to any such ridiculous stuff; and 
 having snatched my hand sharply away from him, drew myself 
 up as straight as a Dutch doll, and gave my gentleman such a 
 look, as very plainly told him I wasn't the weak-minded silly 
 he seemed to take me for. 
 
 However, do what I would, I could not set Sir Luke 
 against that housekeeper of his. Complain as often as I 
 would, still he had always some excuse for her ready at the tip 
 of his tongue — " It was very wrong of her, but he was sure 
 the woman meant nothing by it, and he was certain she'd come 
 all right by and bye; he'd seen her so fifty times" — and " the 
 best way was to let her get out of her tantrums as she had 
 got into them" — and a pack of other things that made me 
 quite angry to listen to. 
 
 Really it seemed to me that he was quite afraid of the 
 woman; for over and over again, when I had got him to 
 say that he'd have the creature up and give it her well, 
 still, when my lady made her appearance, upon my word he'd 
 be as civil and polite to her as if he'd been a master of the 
 ceremonies, and she a lady-patroness of some public ball. 
 
 One day, I remember, he brought home witli him from 
 the city two lovely gros-de-Naples dresses, of exactly the 
 same colour, and after having presented me with one, actually 
 had the impudence to tell me to my face that he intended the 
 other for that housekeeper. So, though I had accepted the 
 lovely piece of silk, still I returned it to him, telling him very 
 plainly that " though I was very, very much obliged to him 
 for his kindness, still I could not condescend to dress in the 
 same style as his housekeeper." Whereupon, what did my 
 gentleman do, but present that Miss Botty with the two 
 
262 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 dresses instead of the one. This did put me in such a puff, 
 that I was as near as possible giving him notice to quit 
 myself, and I do verily believe I should have done so, only 
 I didn't see the fun of letting a common housekeeper get 
 the better of me. 
 
 Accordingly I made up my mind to bring matters to a crisis, 
 and see ichich of us Sir Luke really would part with. How- 
 ever, as I thought my refusal of the dress might have 
 offended him a little with me, I fancied it might be better 
 first to make him some little present, just to propitiate him 
 again towards me. So, as Sir Luke's birth-day was very 
 near at hand, I bought a very beautiful papier-mache snuff- 
 box, with a sweet, pretty painting of a lovely young beauty, 
 called " Printemps" on the lid. Having filled it full of the 
 best Scotch rappee, I scratched with the point of a pin 
 inside the cover that it was 
 
 PRESENTED TO 
 
 SIR LUKE SHARPE, BART. 
 
 OX HIS ATTAINING HIS 56TH YEAR, 
 
 (To tell the truth, I knew the old thing was past seventy, if 
 he was a day,) 
 
 WITH AN EARNEST HOPE AND PRAYER 
 
 THAT HE MAY BE SPARED 
 
 FOR MANY YEARS TO COME. 
 
 After giving him a good dinner of grouse, which he was 
 exceedingly fond of, I suddenly left the room, and requested 
 the servant to take the parcel I had made up to him. When, 
 in a few minutes, I returned to the room, I pretended — on 
 his taxing me with being the party who had presented the 
 box to him — not to know anything at all about it, though, of 
 course, I took good care to deny it in such a way as to let 
 him see that I didn't like to confess to it, and to give hirn to 
 understand, at least, that it wasn't that Miss Botty who had 
 given it to him. And then, dear me! if the little bit of flat- 
 tery about my fancying him to be as young as I had made 
 him out on the lid hadn't put him in such a good humour, 
 that he took out his cheque-book, and would insist upon my 
 accepting a cheque for ten guineas, saying that I was a foolish, 
 silly, good, kind-hearted girl, to go wasting my hard-earned 
 money upon him, and he would not allow it. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 263 
 
 " Oh! thank you, Sir Luke, I can hardly think of accepting 
 it," I said, wrapping it up and slipping it into my purse; 
 " for the fact is, I wished you to receive it as a parting token 
 of my esteem." 
 
 "Parting!" he cried, quite pale in the face; "why, what 
 the deuce do you mean, my good girl?" 
 
 " Yes, Sir Luke," I replied, looking down on the ground, 
 and sighing deeply; "I am sorry to say I must quit your 
 establishment as soon as you can conveniently spare me — 
 though I'm sure it must be in the night, or I shall never 
 be able to tear myself away from those dear children." 
 
 "Go as soon as I can conveniently spare you!" he cried, 
 staring at me with all his eyes; "then if it comes to that, I 
 can't spare you, so you won't go at all. Who on earth, I 
 should like to know, is to market for me, and make my white 
 wine whey of a night, when you leave? What do you want 
 to go for? Ain't you comfortable?" 
 
 " I'm sure," I answered, as if choking with emotion, " I 
 never was so comfortable as since I've been in your establish- 
 ment, Sir Luke. But the fact is — you see — I — that is, you 
 know — I feel I'm not exactly wanted here — in fact, I cannot 
 consent to stop." 
 
 "Not wanted!" he exclaimed, thunderstruck; "why, who 
 says you're not wanted, when I've told you over and over 
 again I can't do without you, girl?" 
 
 "Yes, I know you have been so kind as to say so, Sir 
 Luke," I answered, hesitating; "but I'm also well aware 
 that whatever little services I may have been so fortunate as 
 to be able to render you, have only been an interference 
 with other persons' duties: the very idea of this has pained 
 me so much, that I have long seen it would be necessary for 
 the comfort of all parties concerned, that either your house- 
 keeper or myself should leave; and out of consideration for 
 Susan's feelings, I have determined that /would go, however 
 much the struggle may cost me." And I looked at him to 
 see if I could discover what impression my speech had made 
 on him, while I sat upon pins to learn which of the two Sir 
 Luke would make up his mind to part with. 
 
 " Stuff o' nonsense! — stuff o' nonsense!" he burst out; "I 
 won't listen to it a moment. A parcel of women's quarrels I 
 
264 -WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 Why can't you live comfortably and happily together? I've 
 told you over and over again Susan means very well, if you 
 only know how to take her. So, come now, don't be stupid, 
 and go quarrelling with your bread and butter in this way." 
 
 "My bread and butter, Sir Luke!" I exclaimed, indig- 
 nantly, drawing myself up. 
 
 " Well," he continued, in bis nasty vulgar way, as if 
 all the best feelings of our nature were capable of being 
 reduced into a matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, "if 
 you want more wages, child, say so at once, and I'm sure 
 you won't find me object to anything reasonable." 
 
 " My ivages, sir," I replied, contemptuously, with a curl of 
 my lip, "I am perfectly content with." Then rising and 
 walking towards the door, I added, " I will leave this day 
 month, if you please, Sir Luke Sharpe." 
 
 The stateliness of my manner, accompanied with the 
 evident firmness of my resolution, quite took the old Baronet 
 by surprise. As I turned round, before opening the door, to 
 observe the impression I had made upon him, I could see him 
 biting his nail, and twisting it over in his mind, as much as 
 to say, "What on earth shall I do?" Finding he was still 
 undecided, I said in my most pathetic manner, " Good night, 
 Sir Luke! — good night!" 
 
 I was just leaving the room, when he called out after 
 me, " Come back! come back! now, don't you be rash. Don't 
 let either of us make up our minds one way or the other till 
 to-morrow. You see, it's always been a maxim of mine to 
 sleep upon any resolution I may form over-night, and I've 
 always said to myself, ' May the evening's determination bear 
 the morning's reflection.' And that, my good girl, I verily 
 believe, is the reason why people say I'm the wonderful man 
 I am. Bless you ! if I'd gone galloping through the world 
 with my eyes shut, in such a post-haste hurry to gain my 
 object, as most people do — I should have been worse off than 
 when I started — and that was bad enough, goodness knows. 
 So you take advice from one who has risen from almost 
 nothing to be one of the first men in the first city in the 
 world, merely because he's had his eyes open all his life. 
 Kow, you be counselled by me, and listen to one who has got 
 a head upon his shoulders, and let's talk the matter quietly 
 over in the mornimr." 
 
.-. ^M 
 
 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 265 
 
 " Very well, Sir Luke, as you please," I merely answered, 
 and left the prudent Scotch Baronet to his own cogitations, 
 whatever they might have been. 
 
 ****** 
 
 In the morning, Sir Luke sent up the servant to say he 
 wished to speak to me. Fully convinced from his manner 
 over-night, and from all I had seen and heard besides, that, 
 he would rather part with me than so old a friend as that 
 Miss Botty, — I descended the stairs in obedience to his 
 summons. 
 
 After I was seated, he began his " morning's reflections." 
 However, he did keep beating about the bush so, and made 
 such a long preface, and spoke in such a strange, nervous 
 way, that I couldn't help saying to myself, " "Well, what on 
 earth will all this end in?" All of a sudden, if he didn't go 
 down upon his knees, in the old- approved style of "propos- 
 ing," and offer me his hand and his heart. 
 
 I was really so unprepared for this, that I hardly knew 
 what to say. A whole flood of thoughts rushed in upon me; 
 and in the tumult of my conflicting emotions, I told him I 
 could not give him an immediate answer, and requested that 
 he would allow me to take a lesson from him in discretion, 
 and sleep upon it. 
 
 Once shut up alone in my own room, I began to look upon 
 the matter as calculatingly and selfishly as I knew Sir Luke 
 had done. My first thoughts were of the pride I should feel 
 at being mistress of an establishment like the Baronet's. 
 Then again, I should be Lady Luke; and what a victory that 
 would be over my mother, who had only a little while back 
 thrown my poverty in my teeth! Besides, Fanny's success 
 in life was still a thorn in my side — though I almost loved 
 her now for the kindness she had shown me. Again, when 
 I was mistress of that establishment, I should no longer 
 have any occasion to ask whether the housekeeper " might 
 go or not," but could send her off when and how I pleased. 
 Yet, still my woman's better nature crept back, after all, and 
 I could not help thinking of the frightful sacrifice at which I 
 was to purchase my victory. There was I, in the very 
 prime of my life, about to swear to love and honour the 
 wretched remnant of a man whom in my heart I loathed and 
 
 T 
 
266 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 despised. The more I thought of it, the more wicked such 
 an union appeared to me; and I could not bring myself to 
 believe that any ceremony on earth could consecrate it into 
 marriage. " No," I said to myself, " I'd have nothing to do with 
 it; and without waiting for the morning, I'd go down then 
 and there — while my better thoughts were upon me — and tell 
 Sir Luke that I preferred rather to quit his house." Still, the 
 whole object of my life, that had slipped from me so often, 
 despite all my struggles, seemed now to be within my grasp, 
 and I could not after all consent so readily to forego it. 
 Then I thought to myself of all the alterations I would have 
 done in the house, and what a grand place it might be made — 
 how I should be the possessor of furniture, even more costly 
 than that which had been taken from me. Then every one 
 should talk of the balls and routs I would give, and envy 
 the carriages I would keep, and the opera-box — and as I 
 said the words to myself, the prophecy of my father, spoken 
 but a few years back, rang in my ears: — 
 
 " And when you have angled for your carriage and your 
 opera-box, with real love as your bait, you will, after a time, 
 bait, like other anglers, with something so cunningly like the 
 real thing, that it will catch almost as well; and the poor 
 tricked fish will find to his cost, when it is too late, that he 
 has been taken by what is only artificial, after all." 
 
 This almost decided me; and I was preparing to go down- 
 stairs and tell Sir Luke of my determination, when the house- 
 keeper entered my room, and begged to know " whether I 
 intended my master to have any dinner or not to-day." 
 
 I no sooner heard the words than my mind was made 
 up, and I hurried down to Sir Luke, to accept the offer he 
 had made me. 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 267 
 
 OFFER THE LAST. 
 
 OF COURSE I HAVEN T GONE THROUGH EVERY OFFER I RECEIVED, OR 
 ELSE GOODNESS KNOWS I SHOULD HAVE HAD ENOUGH TO DO. l'vE 
 ONLY DESCRIBED THE MORE IMPORTANT ONES. ANY LADY CAN WELL 
 UNDERSTAND I HAD A NUMBER OF OTHERS, WHO, THOUGH VERY 
 WORTHY INDIVIDUALS, WERE FAR FROM WELL TO DO IN THE WORLD. 
 ONE, I RECOLLECT, WAS FROM A VERY NICE SWISS COTTAGE. ANOTHER 
 FROM A YOUNG FIRM IN THE CITY. I THINK THERE WAS ONE FROM A 
 SMALL ESTATE IN "BUCKS,'' AND TWO OR THREE REDUCED ANNUITIES. 
 SEVERAL CLUB-HOUSES, I KNOW, WERE VERY ANXIOUS TO CARRY ME 
 OFF, AND I REMEMBER VERY WELL REFUSING NEARLY THE WHOLE OF 
 THE IRISH WING OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 
 
 All was shortly settled for my wedding with Sir Luke. 
 Though I wrote to my father requesting his attendance at my 
 marriage, he sent me a long letter back, telling me he would 
 not by his presence countenance me in so immoral an union, 
 and moreover, that he had expressly forbidden any member 
 of his family to be in any way party to my " dishonour." At 
 first, this only hardened me the more; but as the fearful day 
 drew near, my father's discountenance made me wish that I 
 could unsay the promise I had given. The night before the 
 wretched day I laid awake till it was nearly morning, restless 
 with my anxious thoughts; and when at last I fell asleep, my 
 dreams were horrible. I fancied I was at the altar, and the 
 priest kept jumbling up the funeral with the marriage service; 
 and that when all was over, and I turned round to see my 
 husband, I thought I found that I had been wedded to a 
 corpse who was standing knee deep in a newly-dug grave. 
 
 However, I was not the woman to be turned away from 
 my purpose by an idle dream. The next morning I became 
 Lady Sharpe, though, as I left the church, I could have cried; 
 for I saw the people in the crow r d at the church door, as I and 
 Sir Luke passed through them, laugh and nudge each other, 
 and I could hear their ribald jokes as the shrivelled and 
 
 T 2 
 
268 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 tottering bridegroom went by leaning on the arm of the 
 buxom bride. 
 
 Of course I was not long in clearing the house of all the 
 old servants who had known who their mistress was, and 
 who, from having lived so long in the hoHse of a single gen- 
 tleman, were indeed hardly fit companions to be about the 
 person of Sir Luke's new wife. 
 
 At the first opportunity I spoke to Sir Luke about the 
 alterations I proposed making in the house, and then I 
 began to find out to my cost, that those habits which I had 
 thought were merely the consequence of his solitary life, were 
 in reality the result of ingrained selfishness and parsimony. 
 2so sooner did I propose spending any money on the place, 
 than from the manner in which he told me that he had not 
 earned his money so hard as he had to squander it away in 
 any such nonsense as that, I at once saw the life I should 
 have to lead. 
 
 Indeed, if I asked him for a sixpence, the request was fol- 
 lowed by such a host of suspicious inquiries, and, even if 
 given at all, was given so grudgingly, that my hot temper 
 would not put up with the niggardliness, and we very soon 
 got to continual bickerings, and each of us most bitterly to 
 repent the step we had taken. His old cant phrases now 
 made me so sick, that when he told me he hadn't lived 
 all his time for nothing, and that it was no use my trying 
 to impose upon him, and asked me whether I tt>ok him for 
 a fool or not, my blood would boil up until I could not re- 
 frain from telling him what I really did take him for. Then 
 the storm of words between us would become more violent 
 than ever, and we would live in the same house estranged 
 for weeks. 
 
 Yet, what exasperated me more than all Sir Luke's other 
 suspicions, were his continual doubts of my honour. Never 
 did I move abroad but I felt sure there was some one at my 
 heels to watch me. This was more than I could bear, and 
 I threatened, if it continued, to leave him altogether. But 
 he had the audacity to tell me he wished to goodness I would 
 go, and then he should be rid of the worst bargain he ever 
 made in all his life. "When I found out this was his object, 
 it only made me more determined to bear quietly whatever 
 insults he might heap upon me, so that he might be foiled in 
 
<^ y -fZs& 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 269 
 
 his purpose. Then we lived in separate parts of the house, 
 and we saw as little of each other as we possibly could. 
 The old thing even taught his children to shun me. 
 
 But I was determined to be revenged. I left him to the 
 mercy of his servants for everything he wanted. The little 
 attentions that had once made me so precious to him, I deter- 
 mined he should not have again from me, and that even his 
 very meals he should order for himself. This state of things 
 continued for some time ; but Sir Luke was too selfish not to 
 make some resistance. Cut off from his creature comforts, 
 or at least left to devise them for himself, he was not long in 
 seeking for some one who would supply my place, and save 
 him that trouble. 
 
 One day, to my horror, I learnt from one of the maids that 
 his former housekeeper had returned. 
 
 Stung to the quick, and frenzied with passion, I rushed 
 down stairs to order the woman from the house. But the 
 wretch only laughed at me, and told me to my face that she 
 was there by Sir Luke's orders, and that he had told her that 
 she was to be the mistress of the house. 
 
 I immediately sought Sir Luke, and demanded, by the 
 terms of the oath he had sworn at the altar, the woman's in- 
 stant dismissal. But the more I raged at the indignity that 
 had been put upon me, the more he gloried in the victory he 
 had gained. Now perhaps I should remember, he said, that 
 Sir Luke Sharpe wasn't quite such a fool as he looked, and 
 perhaps by this time I had discovered that he had got a head 
 upon his shoulders, and wasn't born yesterday. 
 
 As I lost all command over myself, I reviled him in such 
 terms as I shudder now even to remember; he rang the bell, 
 and, ordering up all the servants, told them in my presence, 
 that they were no longer to obey me, but the housekeeper. 
 
 I was fairly beaten. I knew not what a cold, callous mon- 
 ster I had to deal with. Satisfied that any appeals to his heart, 
 his spirit, or his worldly pride were useless, I left the house, 
 saying to myself, " There is but one way by which to wound 
 you, my gentleman, and that revenge at least I will have. 
 If the only sensitive part in your frame is your breeches 
 pocket, and your money is your heart's blood, why, at least 
 I will intake that flow." 
 
270 WHOM TO MARRY 
 
 I left the house, and rushed into every extravagance I could 
 think of. Wherever I could gain credit, or contract a debt, on 
 the faith of his rich fame, there I went. Hotel bills, carriages, 
 parties, velvets, silks, satins, jewellery, laces, millinery, every 
 luxury I fancied, I indulged in. And when the bills, all 
 together — as I had taken good care to arrange — were sent in 
 to the niggardly Sir Luke, I felt happy in the pang I knew 
 it cost him. 
 
 But the old Baronet was not a man to be trifled with, for 
 the day after the bills poured in upon him, he inserted an 
 advertisement in all the papers, and posted all the walls about 
 the neighbourhood where I was living, with bills, stating that 
 he would not be answerable for any debts incurred by his 
 wife. 
 
 This cut off all further credit from me, and for some time 
 I lived upon the valuables I had collected. When these were 
 eaten up, I sent my attorney to demand of him the five hundred 
 a-year he had so often said he would give me as a separate 
 maintenance, to get rid of me. But I had wounded him so 
 deeply with the keen revenge I had taken, that his only 
 answer was, that, as I had taken the law into my own hands, 
 I should now only have what the law would force him to 
 give me, and that was enough to keep me from being a 
 burthen upon the parish. Again and again I sent to him, 
 threatening to expose him in all the papers, and go before the 
 magistrate to force some assistance from him, unless he 
 agreed to settle on me some suitable maintenance. 
 
 But it was all to no purpose. He was callous to the last, 
 and the old answer came and came — " I might do as I pleased, 
 I should get no more than parish allowance from him. Those 
 who knew Sir Luke Sharpe knew who he was, and what he 
 was, and as for those who didn't know him, why, he didn't 
 care twopence about them. So I might expose him in the 
 public papers as much as I pleased." 
 
 As long as I could, I held out the siege against my pride. 
 At last, fairly starved out, and ill and careworn, I thought 
 once more of home. But even then I could not bring myself 
 to confess to those who had withheld their sanction from my 
 marriage the misery that marriage had brought upon me. At 
 
AND HOW TO GET MARRIED. 271 
 
 last I scribbled a letter to my father — anonymous, as if coming 
 from some friendly neighbour — stating the distress in which 
 "I was, and how I was struggling with my pride for my very 
 life. 
 
 Early the next morning my own dear kind father came. 
 He consoled me, and listened to the long story of my suffer- 
 ings till he almost wept. 
 
 " Lotty," he cried, raising me up in my bed, " let your 
 trials, as I said before, come upon you when they may, here, 
 my child," he said, pressing me to his bosom, " shall always 
 be a heart ready to console you, when, alas! it is too late to 
 direct and guide." 
 
 Fairly overcome by his kindness, I told him how I had 
 been treated by the old Baronet, my husband. But all he 
 said in answer was to repeat his early warning to me against 
 angling for a husband — 
 
 " When you have angled for your carriage and your opera- 
 box, with real love as your bait, you will, after a time, bait, 
 like other anglers, with something so cunningly like the real 
 thing, that it will catch almost as well; and the poor tricked 
 Jish u'illjind to his cost, when it is too late, that he has been 
 taken by ivhat is only artificial, after all. Lotty! Lotty! you 
 never could have loved this mere shell of a man?" 
 
 " Father, I did not." 
 
 " Can you wonder, then, my child," he said, " at the misery 
 it has brought upon you? For, thank Gcd! though I always 
 taught my child that something more than love was required 
 to constitute a happy union, still I never gave her to under- 
 stand that something less than love could, by the remotest 
 possibility, do so." 
 
 T. C. Savill, Frinter, 4, Chancios Street, Covent Garden. 
 
? > 
 
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