Now, Caroline, dearest, perhaps he did!
With all these pleasant things said about one’s party, I cannot see that it is such a dismal thing as Mr. P. tries to make out. After one of his solemn talks, I asked Mr. Cheese what he thought of balls, whether it was so very wicked to dance, and go to parties, if one only went to church twice a day on Sundays. He patted his lips a moment with his handkerchief, and then he said,—and, Caroline, you can always quote the Rev. Cream Cheese as authority,—
“Dear Mrs. Potiphar, it is recorded in Holy Scripture that the King danced before the Lord.”
Darling, if anything should happen, I don’t believe he would object much to our dancing.
What gossips we women are, to be sure! I meant to write you about our new livery and I am afraid I have tired you out already. You remember when you were here, I said that I meant to have a livery, for my sister Margaret told me that when they used to drive in Hyde Park, with the old Marquis of Mammon, it was always so delightful to hear him say, “Ah! there is Lady Lobster’s livery.”
It was so aristocratic. And in countries where certain colors distinguish certain families, and are hereditary, so to say, it is convenient and pleasant to recognize a coat-of-arms, or a livery, and to know that the representative of a great and famous family is passing by.
“That’s a Howard, that’s a Eussell, that’s a Dorset, that’s de Colique, that’s Mount Ague,” old Lord Mammon used to say as the carriages whirled by. He knew none of them personally, I believe, except de Colique and Mount Ague, but then it was so agreeable to be able to know their liveries.
Now why shouldn’t we have the same arrangement? Why not have the Smith colors, and the Brown colors, and the Black colors, and the Potiphar colors, etc., so that the people might say, “Ah! there goes the Potiphar arms.”
There is one difficulty, Mr. P. says, and that is, that he found five hundred and sixty-seven Smiths in the Directory, which might lead to some confusion. But that was absurd, as I told him, because everybody would know which of the Smiths was able to keep a carriage, so that the livery would be recognized directly the moment that any of the family were seen in a carriage. Upon which he said, in his provoking way, “Why have any livery at all, then?” and he persisted in saying that no Smith was ever the Smith for three generations, and that he knew at least twenty, each of whom was able to set up his carriage and stand by his colors.
“But then a livery is so elegant and aristocratic,” said I, “and it shows that a servant is a servant.”