“I thought of you, ma’am,” she had said, turning up her eyes, “how you would have wished me to act, you that sets virtue before everything.”
If the Queen had gathered a lower opinion of Pamela Pounce’s moral stamina from the interview than was justified by facts, she had gained a vastly higher one of my Lady Kilcroney’s. So the incident was closed to Kitty’s advantage.
And now Pamela was wed, and my Lady Kilcroney had made quite a droll, pretty feast of it.
Farmer Pounce, in blue cloth and brass buttons, Mrs. Pounce, in a lovely new bonnet trimmed for the occasion by her daughter, followed by a rosy progeny, had been really such honest, simple dears that Kitty quite loved them; and Pamela (sensible, excellent creature that she was, who had chosen to be married in a snowy muslin and a white chip), had looked so sweet and wholesome and happy, and withal remained so respectfully in her place, was so pleasantly unassuming, that my Lady very genuinely considered old Bellairs’s nephew to be more lucky than he deserved.
She had convened her special circle to witness the ceremony, which was performed in her own drawing-room at Hertford Street; not omitting Mistress Lafone, for Kitty would not put it into the minx’s power to say that she was afraid of her tongue.
There was a brisk passage between these two ladies, out of which Kitty, she flattered herself, emerged victorious.
“Dear, to be sure,” had said Molly, with her most tart-sweet air, “how monstrous strange it will be to be ordering hats from your own niece, my Lady Kilcroney!”
And my Lady had responded: she trusted to Heaven that Pamela would be more particular than ever, now, whom she served.
Madame Mirabel had had the good sense to excuse herself on the ground of age and infirmity; a piece of tact which, coupled with the handsome present she bestowed on her esteemed partner, was as clever a stroke of business as the astute old lady had ever contrived.
Miss Clara Smithson and Miss Polly Popple, on the other hand, who were, as the whole of the Bond Street establishment knew, that devoted to their dear, darling Miss Pounce that they were as glad of her happiness in the depths of their feeling hearts as if it had been their own, could not, of course, be omitted from the list of guests; and indeed, it may be said that Lydia’s only consolation on a day, which was otherwise unmitigatedly displeasing to her, was the opportunity which the presence of these females gave her of discharging her bosom of some of its accumulated gall.