‘Talk of skylarking on “the lake whose gloomy shore!”’ They all laughed except the two Fulmorts.
‘There’s a simpler reason,’ said one of the Guardsmen, ‘namely, that neither party will be there at all.’
‘No, not the saint—’
‘Nor the lady. Miss Charteris tells me all the maiden aunts are come up from the country.’ (How angry Phœbe was!)
‘Happily it is an article I don’t possess.’
‘Well, we will not differ about technicalities, as long as the fact is the same. You’ll remember my words when you are kept on a diet of Hannah More and Miss Edgeworth till you shall have abjured hounds, balls, and salmon-flies.’
‘The woman lives not who has the power!’
‘What bet will you take, Miss Sandbrook?’
‘What bet will you take, Lord William, that, maiden aunts and all, I appear on the 3rd, in a dress of salmon-flies?’
‘A hat trimmed with goose feathers to a pocket-handkerchief, that by that time you are in the family mansion, repenting of your sins.’