My Lady Peggy Goes to Town

by Frances Aymar Mathews

Grigson bows.

“And her mother still in York?”

Grigson bows.

“And the Earl still believing his daughter to be in that damned Kent with her godmother?”

Grigson bows for the third time.

“And that cursed Abigail still affirming that her mistress is up in London?”

Grigson bows for the fourth time.

“Asking your pardon, Sir Percy,” he adds, noting with a keen and generous sympathy, which not infrequently exists in the hearts of serving-men for their masters, the deepening pallor of the young gentleman’s countenance, and his most disheveled appearance.

“Asking your pardon, Sir, but whiles I might be doing your wig, which is most uncommon tousled, I’d make bold to tell you, Sir, that Mistress Jane Chockey, Lady Peggy’s own woman, Sir, is in an awful way, Sir!”

“My wig may go to the devil, you idiot!” cries Percy. “What’s the blabbing jade’s tantrums to me! Get out of my sight.”