"I never think of it, I don't see my wife's cards," says Mr. Potts, who has had a good deal of champagne, and is rather moist about the eyes. "'Mrs. Plantagenet Potts' would look well, wouldn't it?"
"Very aristocratic," says false Molly, with an admiring nod. "I almost think,—I am not quite sure,—but I almost think I would marry a man to bear a name like that."
"Would you?" cries Mr. Potts, his tongue growing freer, while enthusiasm sparkles in every feature. "If I only thought that, Miss Molly——"
"How pretty Mrs. Darley is looking to-night!" interrupts Molly, adroitly; "what a clear complexion she has!—just like a child's."
"Not a bit of it," says Mr. Potts. "Children don't require 'cream of roses' and 'Hebe bloom' and—and all that sort of thing, you know—to get 'emselves up."
"Ah! my principal pity for her is that she doesn't seem to have anything to say."
"Englishwomen never have, as a rule; they are dull to the last degree. Now, you are a singular exception."
"English! I am not English," says Molly, with exaggerated disgust. "Do not offend me. I am Irish—altogether, thoroughly Irish,—heart and mind a Paddy."
"No! are you, by Jove?" says Mr. Potts. "So am I—at least, partly so. My mother is Irish."
So she had been English, Welsh, and Scotch on various occasions; there is scarcely anything Mrs. Potts had not been. There was even one memorable occasion on which she had had Spanish blood in her veins, and (according to Plantagenet's account) never went out without a lace mantilla flowing from her foxy head. It would, indeed, be rash to fix on any nationality to which the venerable lady might not lay claim, when her son's interests so willed it.