When Pickering had seated his beautiful guests in the small dining room adjoining the tap-room, he returned to the bar and sent his daughter Betty to serve them. She was a beautiful girl of eighteen, who had returned only a few months before from France, where she had spent three or four winters in a convent, her summers having been spent with her father.
There was no fairer skin nor sweeter face than Betty Pickering's. The expression of her great brown eyes, with their arching brows, was so demure as to give the impression that somewhere back in the shadow of their long, thick lashes lurked a fund of laughter and harmless mischief as charming as it was apparently latent. Her form was of the partridge fashion, though not at all too plump, and her hands, which were white and soft as any lady's, were small and dimpled at every knuckle. Her little feet and ankles—but we shall stop at the ankles.
Betty was unusually rich in dimples, having one in each cheek and a half score or more about her lips and chin whenever she smiled. She was well aware of the beauty of her dimples and her teeth; therefore, like a sensible girl that she was, she smiled a great deal, both from feminine policy and natural inclination. In short, Bettina was a Hebe in youth and beauty, and soon after I learned to know her, I learned also that she was an earthly little angel in disposition. It may appear from the enthusiasm of this description that there was a time in my life when I was in love with her. I admit it—desperately in love with her.
To have Betty's services at the Old Swan was a favor enjoyed only by her friends and guests of the highest quality. She was not an ordinary barmaid, though she had friends whom she delighted to honor. Among these were Hamilton and myself, we having visited the Old Swan frequently prior to the time of Hamilton's going to France.
Frances and Nelly had chosen a table in a secluded corner of the private dining room, and were waiting somewhat impatiently when Betty went in to serve them.
"Will my ladies eat from table linen—extra, sixpence?" asked Betty, bending her knee in what might have been called a perpendicular courtesy. Had she been sure that her customers were of high rank, she would have saluted them with a low bow, omitting to mention the extra charge for the linen. But as Frances and Nelly were not escorted by a gentleman, she was not sure of their station.
"Will we eat from table linen?" demanded Nelly, in apparent indignation. "Now, damn the girl! Just hear her! From what else, in God's name, hussy, should we eat? From a trough? And mind you, if there is a spot on it as large as my smallest finger nail, I'll tear it to shreds!" She winked to Frances, perhaps to show Betty that she was only chaffing, for in all the world there was no kinder heart than Nelly Gwynn's.
Betty at once concluded that her guests were great ladies, perhaps from
Whitehall itself, for surely none save ladies of the highest or lowest
rank would use the language that came so trippingly on Nelly's tongue. So
Betty made a deep courtesy, smiled, and answered:—
"Yes, my ladies, it shall be as spotless as a maid of honor's character.
It cost five shillings the ell."
"Is that the best you can do?" demanded Nelly, laughing despite herself at Betty's reference to the maids of honor. "Never in all my life have I eaten from anything cheaper than guinea linen, and I know I shall choke—choke, I tell you! Odds fish! this is terrible!" Then turning to Frances: "But it serves us right, duchess, for leaving the palace."