Her saucy words brought me a brave idea.
“Prue,” says I, “while you conquer my papa, I’ll go captivate the Captain.”
Even as I spoke it flashed upon me what I had to gain. Let me once reduce him to complete infatuation, as I had done on a previous occasion, then I might venture to divorce him from his duty, and prevail upon him to destroy that horrible blue paper. The Earl, my papa, would then have nought to fear from the Tower.
Therefore, like Miss Prue, I fell to trimming myself up against the evening. I had out a new exquisite gown, that was only yesterday from the tailors, and a very lovely modish article. And what a virginity there is about an unworn dress! How unwrinkled and serene is its countenance; how chaste and creaseless in its outward semblance! What a wooing look it hath with which to provoke the eye and mind of Millamant! Its graces wedded to her own, and where’s the bosom to resist that combination of art and nature? Once on, however, and the nap is off the velvet of your dress and your desire also. The thing is not so perfect as it seemed. The armpit chafes you; there is a gusset out of place; it is a twenty-fifth of an inch too low of neck, or a twenty-fifth of an inch too high. The sleeve is too much like a pyramid, or not enough so. And you fear it is just two days behind the time. You would return it to the tailor on the instant, only—only you so crave to wear it this very night. Then you recall that all your others have been similar; fair and smiling failures; in the wardrobe supreme and flawless; on the body detestable and tight. You wear it three times; it begins to cleave to you like a friend, when lo! the silk frays, the lilac fades, the mode’s beyond it. I suppose a perfect robe ne’er will be fashioned till Nature fashions a perfect wearer. Your pardon, reader, but I am as privileged and fit to soliloquise upon a dress, I take it, as a poet is upon the stars, or a philosopher upon the dust and destination of his uncle. Ohe! jam satis est.
The Honourable Prue was dressed at last. A more ravishing figure I never saw; all flounce and furbelow; sprigs of japonica upon her petticoat; her face a painted glamour; a wondrous starry lustre in her eyes. Emblem put the crowning touches to her hair, and applied a special powder to it that improved a common yellow to a most uncommon gold. I bestowed my best pearl necklace on her, fastened a great jewel among her artifice of curls, set diamond rings upon her fingers and braceleted her wrists, though the manner in which they were crammed upon ’em hath yet to be explained.
How fair she looked, and what an archness in her lifted chin and laughing eyes! Seen under the subdued and mellow lamplight, that wrapped soft shades and gentle tints about her, I declare I never saw one more fortunate in beauty at Kensington or Windsor.
Having thus robed her to perfection and heightened her appearance till she might melt one with a look, we put her out and bade her lock herself in Emblem’s chamber, whilst inimitable Mrs. Polly trimmed me for conquests too.
In a time, a long way less than half Miss Prue had occupied, I was declared to be accomplished properly. I wish you could have seen us when that young person was fetched in to criticise and to stand the ordeal of comparison. She stood before me, set her head a little to one side, as if deliberating nicely, and looked over all my inches keenly but complacently.
“Huh! you’re not ugly,” was her verdict.
“And you a man?” I cries, for I could not bring myself to consider that a veritable member of the Sex of Victims could damn me with faint praise of this sort.