Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

your manners to Mr. Welsted; he is a most gentlemanly young man; and consider, as I say, the connexion; this young nobleman will marry, and of course have a family; his children may in time come to Montgomery Place Academy,-who knows? and though I hate nobility in general, this lord is really such a very different person from any lord I have ever seen before, and—

What more Mr. Tickle might have intended to add in the way of praise to the already unusual quantity he had devoted to Feversham's person, manner, and qualities, I know not, for Welsted and his lordship returned to the parlour to take leave of the family, which opportunity his lordship seized to say, that he hoped it would not break in upon Mr. Tickle's arrangements to spare his friend on the following Sunday.

"Not in the least, my lord," said Tickle; when your lordship, or the noble lord your lordship's noble father wishes to see my young and excellent friend (if Mr. Welsted will permit me to call him so) I shall be but too happy to deprive myself of the pleasure of his society ?"

"Will your lordship take any thing?" said Mrs. Tickle.

"Nothing, I thank you," said Feversham; "I must ride fast to get back in time to dress for dinner."

66

"I find, my lord," said Tickle, smirkingly, "that the noble earl, your lordship's father, is about to join the administration."

"What!" exclaimed Feversham, "the earl of Farnborough ! in what capacity, pray?"

"Postmaster General, we heard, my lord," said

Tickle.

"Indeed!" said the viscount, "news travels fast and strangely."

"I hope, my lord," said Tickle, "I have not prematurely broached the subject; "I was not aware—”

[ocr errors]

Pray make no apologies," replied the viscount, none are necessary; only that I assure you, however you may have obtained the information, it is wholly without foundation."

"Dear me!" said Tickle--" that is very strange. My usher, my lord, saw it in an evening paper only the night before last."

"That is extremely probable, my dear sir," said Feversham; "and if you knew the glorious ignorance of facts, in which newspaper-mongers in general live in this great town, and the perfect facility with which, by a dash of the pen, a plausible falsehood (always at the command of an inventive journalist) can supply the place of real information, you would not be surprised that an editor should occasionally send a cripple fox-hunting, convert an elegant and accomplished equerry into a weather-beaten veteren; burn a countess to death in the north, before she had admitted fires into her boudoir; marry a couple who have never been introduced; or appoint a nobleman to an office in the government which never was intended for him, and which, I can assure you in the present instance, he would not have accepted

had it been offered."

"Dear me !" said Tickle, " that is very strange."

"Not more strange than true," said Feversham; "but I must be away, it is getting late; indeed time flew so swiftly while I was under that young lady's commands, that I hardly guessed the hour-so good morning,—I hope in the course of to-morrow evening to pay my respects, till when, adieu !"

The whole family rose: one flew to the bell, another to the door, and the girls to the windows; the grenadier house-maid darted across the fore-court, armed with the key of the great gate, which speedily creaked upon its hinges, as his lordship and Welsted paced the stone pavement thereunto leading. Tickle remained uncovered on the steps of the house, and the ladies stood gazing at the nobleman in hopes of one "last lingering look behind." They were, however, disappointed, and in a few minutes the gate was reclosed, and the inmates of the house preparing for the family tea. Those who are skilled in human nature, and have studied minds, I should think, need not be told the subject of the ladies' conversation after his lordship's de

parture. Should there be a doubt remaining, it will surely vanish, when I say that neither of the Misses Tickle had ever been to an opera. The very tickets became objects of curiosity. A countess's name in

scribed upon her own property was to them a wonder. Indeed, such was the anxiety with which the belles sought information upon all points connected with the important subject, that Welsted, who did not on the one hand choose to commit himself by giving wrong intelligence, and, on the other disliked the idea of betraying his ignorance, was nearly overcome; for so great a change had been wrought in the opinions of the young ladies, by the occurrences of the afternoon, that Francis was no longer chilled with icy looks, no longer listened to with indifference, no longer helped to tea ungraciously; he was now "dear Mr. Welsted," and was entreated to eat this, and drink that, with an earnestess extremely prevalent in those circles, where feeding seems to be the sole source of pleasure, and forcing food down a man's throat the very acme of polite

ness.

But when the morrow came, and wore away, the anxious hearts of the young ladies really palpitated, and they felt that aching sensation, that nervous restlessness, which persons of sanguine constitutions and glowing imaginations are apt to endure on the eve of any great and interesting event. A glass coach was hired for the occasion; the multifarious ringlets destined to grace the young ladies' heads, burst not from their paper buds, but clustered round their faces in their proper papillotes, even at the dinner table, and every sort of exertion was used by the damsels, to render themselves as much like the people with whom they were to be associated as nature would allow, although it must be admitted that gothic towers would not worse assimilate with a Grecian temple, than the belles of Montgomery Place, with the frequenters of the first tier of opera boxes.

Mr. Tickle declined being of the party, therefore one ticket was yet to spare, and even the family under discussion had sufficient tact to leave its disposal to Wel

sted; it is true, the young ladies ventured to recommend two or three candidates, particularly Miss Harriet, who suggested, that Mr. Biddle was a remarkably genteel young man ;-however, the proposition was over-ruled; he was employed in the post-office, and could not get home in time; Mr. Kidney, a very nice gentlemanly lad, was also suggested by the younger sister; but alas! ineffectually; Elizabeth "named no names," she merely sighed and thought how much Stevens would have liked such a party, but even she, stricken as she was with Cupid's dart, consoled herself prudently and philosophically for the absence of her beloved, by the reflection that had he been in the way, Welsted would not have been at the academy, and then there would have been no opera box to go to.

Welsted determined in his own mind, very soon after Tickle had declined going, who should be the fifth of the party, and I dare say my readers will not be long in guessing that the honour was designed for poor Monsieur Ronfleur; to him, a gentleman, and a man of the world, it would be doubtlessly agreeable, and he was moreover, unlikely to commit any of those dreadful solecisms of which it was by no means improbable that either Mr. Biddle or Mr. Kidney, in conjunction with the young ladies, might be unconsciously guilty, and therefore, founding his request to Mr. Tickle on the acknowledged leisure of the French master in the evenings, Welsted first consulted his principal, and under his sanction offered the ticket to monsieur, who meant to express his feelings at length in words-but nature had done more for him in the way of eloquence, than art; his eyes spoke his gratitude for the kindness of his new acquaintance, and the old gentleman, who had been for years the constant object of the young ladies' ridicule, for once found himself again addressed in the language of kindness, and with an offer of civility.

The misses were disappointed at the decision; but such was the influence which the new usher had suddenly obtained, that, seeing the different example set, they began to feel ashamed of their past conduct; and

when Monsieur Ronfleur appeared at a quarter before seven o'clock, in the parlour, ready to attend the ladies, handsomely dressed, his hair well powdered, and his coat decorated with the cross of Saint Louis, they were startled; even Welsted could not help feeling surprise, not unmingled with pleasure, at the extraordinary versatility of Ronfleur's character-the humble, quiet, French teacher, slovenly, and almost dirty in his appearance, no sooner was called into his proper sphere of action, than like the worn warrior at the trumpet's sound, he rallied from the indifference which his sorrows (lightly as they weighed upon him) induced, and he came to his place in society, the gay, gallant, and finished gentle

man.

When the girls appeared dressed, Welsted was considerably alarmed-not as he had anticipated however, -he had expected to find them not sufficiently ornamented for the part of the theatre to which they were going; but when he beheld them ten thousand times finer, and more gay than the lovely creatures, whose entrance into the drawing-room in Grosvenor Square, attired for a similar visit, was strong upon his recollection, he began to be apprehensive that they had overdone it; but his feelings upon this point were beggared by those resulting from the tout ensemble of Mrs. Tickle herself, who had exerted all her skill, and expended almost all the finery of her wardrobe, to do honour to the scene ;-a yellow and blue striped silk gown, (with a pink stomacher,) trimmed and flounced with three rows of gauze, looped up in festoons; a yellow silk turban, with a preposterous plume of scarlet feathers, so arranged as to admit of the exhibition of a tarnished bandeau, adorned her head; all her necklaces were laid round her neck, and all her rings decorated her fingers; an imitation shawl reticule, as large as a moderate sac de nuit, and containing, as Welsted presumed, pocket-handkercheifs for the party, hung upon her arm; her hair, which, according to the established principle of meum and tuum, was indisputably her own, was ringleted more carefully and minutely than that of either of the girls; a sort of

« НазадПродовжити »