“Never heard of him before. Oh, do you mean Joseph the carpenter? I see. Well, and who is that woman with the child on her knee? Why ever does not she put him some more clothes on? He’ll get his death of cold.”
“My dear Madam, that is the Blessed Virgin!”
“I hope it isn’t,” said my Aunt Kezia, bluntly. “I’ll go bail she kept her linen better washed than that. But what’s that queer thing sprawling all over the sky?”
“The Angel Gabriel, Madam.”
“I hope he hasn’t flown in here and seen this,” said my Aunt Kezia. “I should say, if he have, he didn’t feel flattered by his portrait.”
My Aunt Kezia did not seem to care for fine things—smart clothes, jewels, and splendid coaches, or anything like that. She was interested in the lions at the Tower, and she liked to see any famous person of whom my Uncle Charles could tell her; but for Ranelagh she said she did not care twopence. There were men and women plenty wherever you went, and as to silks and laces, she could see them any day over a mercer’s counter. Vauxhall was still worse, and Spring Gardens did not please her any better.
But when, in going through the Tower, we came to the axe which beheaded my Lady Jane Grey, she showed no lack of interest in that. And the next day, when my Uncle Charles said he would show us some of the fine things in the City, and we were driving in Grandmamma’s coach towards Newgate, my Aunt Kezia wanted to know what the open space was; and my Uncle Charles told her,—“Smithfield.”
“Smithfield!” cried she. “Pray you, Mr Desborough, bid your coachman stop. I would liever see this than a Lord Mayor’s Show.”
“My dear Madam, there is nothing to see,” answered my Uncle Charles, who seemed rather perplexed. “This is not a market-day.”
“There’ll be plenty I can see!” was my Aunt Kezia’s reply; and, my Uncle Charles pulling the check-string, we alighted. My Aunt Kezia stood a moment, looking round.