To ensure the performance of the promise, Lady Delacour asked what news there was in the world? This question, she knew, would keep the dowager in delightful employment. “I live quite out of the world here; but since Lady Boucher has the charity to come to see me, we shall hear all the ‘secrets worth knowing,’ from the best authority.”
“Then, the first piece of news I have for you is, that my Lord and my Lady Delacour are absolutely reconciled; and that they are the happiest couple that ever lived.”
“All very true,” replied Lady Delacour.
“True!” repeated Lady Boucher: “why, my dear Lady Delacour, you amaze me!—Are you in earnest?—Was there ever any thing so provoking?—There have I been contradicting the report, wherever I went; for I was convinced that the whole story was a mistake, and a fabrication.”
“The history of the reformation might not be exact, but the reformation itself your ladyship may depend upon, since you hear it from my own lips.”
“Well, how amazing! how incredible!—Lord bless me! But your ladyship certainly is not in earnest? for you look just the same, and speak just in the same sort of way: I see no alteration, I confess.”
“And what alteration, my good Lady Boucher, did you expect to see? Did you think that, by way of being exemplarily virtuous, I should, like Lady Q——, let my sentences come out of my mouth only at the rate of a word a minute?
‘Like—minute—drops—from—off—the—eaves.’
Or did you expect that, in hopes of being a pattern for the rising generation, I should hold my features in penance, immoveably, thus—like some of the poor ladies of Antigua, who, after they have blistered their faces all over, to get a fine complexion, are forced, whilst the new skin is coming, to sit without speaking, smiling, or moving muscle or feature, lest an indelible wrinkle should be the consequence?”
Lady Boucher was impatient to have this speech finished, for she had a piece of news to tell. “Well!” cried she, “there’s no knowing what to believe or disbelieve, one hears so many strange reports; but I have a piece of news for you, that you may all depend upon. I have one secret worth knowing, I can tell your ladyship—and one, your ladyship and Miss Portman, I’m sure, will be rejoiced to hear. Your friend, Clarence Hervey, is going to be married.”