I am right, you may depend upon it, Jenny; and
my mother, your grandmother, was a lady's-maid in a higher family than
Darling--it depends upon them to come and look him up first, and he have
no call to knock at their door without it. Why, it stands to reason,
poor young man! And not a bit hath he eaten from Monday."
"Well, I believe I am right, but I'll ask Miss Dolly. She is that sharp,
she knows everything, and I don't mind what I say to her, when she
thinks that she looks handsome. And it takes a very bad dress, I can
tell you, to put her out of that opinion."
"She is right enough there:" Mrs. Shanks shook her head at her daughter
for speaking in this way. "The ugliest frock as ever came from France
couldn't make her any but a booty. And the Lord knows the quality have
come to queer shapes now. Undecent would be the name for it in our ranks
of women. Why, the last of her frocks she gave you, Jenny, how much did
I put on, at top and bottom, and you three inches shorter than she is!
And the slips they ties round them--oh dear! oh dear! as if that was to
hold them up and buckle them together! Won't they have the groanings by
the time they come to my age?"
CHAPTER XVIII
FRENCH AND ENGLISH
Admiral Darling was now so busy, and so continually called from home by
the duties of his commandership, that he could not fairly be expected
to call upon Mr. Caryl Carne. Yet that gentleman, being rather
sensitive--which sometimes means very spiteful--resented as a personal
slight this failure; although, if the overture had been made, he would
have ascribed it to intrusive curiosity, and a low desire to behold him
in his ruins.
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