“As if every one didn’t know, you long-toothed old frump, that ’tis you Madame keeps on out of charity, and has the books regular checked by a spry young gentleman from the bank every Saturday night, private, or they’d be in the muddle of the world before the month was out!”
Miss Clara Smithson’s secret opinion of Miss Popple was probably no more complimentary, but it is in the nature of things that worthy individuals, working for a common cause, should sink personal feelings; and, therefore, when Miss Smithson made the appalling discovery in connection with the pink-flounced muslin of a Sunday afternoon, it was Miss Popple to whom she confided it the first thing on Monday morning.
That Sunday afternoon being a remarkably fine day, Miss Smithson had accepted the offer of the married nephew in the Tobacco Trade, who was particularly civil to her in view of her reported savings, to drive with him in a hackney as far as Richmond Park, and partake of a choice refection of ale and winkles by the river-side. Now, as the hackney was rolling along the highway towards Richmond, they passed a cottage on the outskirts of the town, a quite superior cottage residence with an embowered garden, honeysuckle and roses. In this garden, upon a rustic chair, a young woman was seated with a child upon her lap. She wore a conspicuous dress of pink muslin. Her head, which was bent over the child, was bare, unpowdered, and clothed with a profusion of bright chestnut tresses. The child’s face, Miss Smithson was able to observe, was very dark, almost foreign-looking, and its little curly pate, coppery-red.
There was something familiar in the attitude of the young person in the flaring frock, and Miss Smithson, who was not a rapid thinker, puzzled over it most of the afternoon. Towards the end of her last glass of ale, neglecting the tempting offer of a final winkle which the devoted nephew was extending to her on his tie-pin, she clapped her hands and cried:
“I have it!”
Being asked to explain this strange diversion from the business of the hour, she declined, and it was only into the sympathetic bosom of Miss Popple that she now unfolded her theories.
“Pamela Pounce it was, my dear, as I’m a living sinner! There’s not another head like that on the town, I’ll swear! And a little black child on her lap, as bold as brass! Miss is so fashionable, too, as we all know. Foh, the hussy! It really,” said the virtuous Miss Smithson, “makes me shudder!”
And shudder she did, till Miss Popple thought she heard her bones rattle.
“I always said,” said Polly Popple, “that there was something mysterious about that young woman’s private life. Dark, did you say, dear? We all know the complexion of the young gentleman that used to come here after Miss Pounce. And she’s been seen with him in the Green Park again, most audacious of late. And what’s to be done now,” she cried in a virtuous passion, “to get her out of the house, and not have her contaminating us respectable females? Let’s to Madame Mirabel this moment!”
“Beware how you do such a thing!” exclaimed Miss Smithson, horror-struck. “Tut, Polly! We’ve got to get things a vast more circumspect before we take such precipitous action. The first thing to find out is whether Miss Pounce has a gown of that impudent colour.”