The arrival some weeks after of "The London Intelligencer"[16] set this matter completely at rest, and plainly told the quid-nuncs their erratum, that for "killed" they ought to have read "married." The paragraph in the Intelligencer was worded to the following effect:—"Married, at the Abbey church of Bath, on Thursday last, by the Honourable and very Reverend Dean P—l—y, Captain Harry Heaviside, late of the —— regiment of foot, to the amiable and affable Miss Barbara Golightly of that city, whose merits will not be diminished by bestowing upon the brave captain, in conjunction with her fair hand, a fortune of ten thousand pounds!"
Lady Lucy had several proposals of marriage made to her by persons of high rank and fortune, but she invariably refused them all; whether it was that Lady Lucy was fastidious in her choice of a companion for life, or that she preferred a state of "single blessedness" to the marriage state, we shall not aver, but simply state her amiable, and disinterested, and generous conduct, to her unhappy niece, to whom she was indeed most unremitting in her attentions; and seemed most assiduous and well pleased in dispensing those nameless acts of kindness to her niece, in thought, in deed—nay, in her very looks, a countenance beaming with goodness and philanthropy; all of which were gratefully and duly acknowledged on the part of Adelaide.
Lady Letitia, after a long continued siege of courtship, took final compassion on Sir Patricius Placebo; whom she was now not unwilling to admit as her true knight, and actually gave him her noble hand as his guerdon; for inasmuch that during the continuation of a long acquaintance, and that too under the same roof withal, yet that her ladyship had never, in any one recorded instance, heard the baronet to pronounce the truly portentous word—perhaps! No, never, in that long continued course.
It was, however, it must be confessed, maliciously asserted by some, yet still contradicted by others, that this being leap year that the lady availed herself of acknowledged privileges belonging and immemorially pertaining to this gifted year. But this we shall not vouch for.
"Non nostrum inter tantas componere lites."
We merely state the fact that her Ladyship duly and legally became Lady Letitia Placebo. Upon the consummation of the marriage Sir Patricius sported a handsome new chariot, with the arms of Placebo quartered agreeably to all the tenor of the rules and laws of arms and blazonry, in the same shield with those of the noble house of Tyrconnel; and he did not forget his own motto, which was a kind of pun (at that time in vogue) upon his own name—
placebo, semperque placebo!
From which said motto one may fairly infer that the baronet's opinion of himself was by very many degrees removed above mediocrity!
Mrs. Judith Brangwain, now far advanced in years, and somewhat splenetic in her remarks, expressed much serious displeasure and vexation at this matrimonial event; she said: "It truly calls forth my marvel and wonderment. For surely my Lady Letitia must have been bewitched, any how; and that is faith, sure enough, the only razonable way for counting it. And, in troth, any how my lady is a deal too good for the ould midwife, to be sure, that is sartain. Who, after all in all, is the very Carrick on Suir [caricature] of a defunct fop! Better—aye, far better, would it have been for Lady Letitia to have eloped with her riding switch to the continent; aye, and to have passed seven long years and a day in taking the tower of Europa in search of a husband, sooner nor domain herself by giving the hand of a princess of a right ould Irish stock to an upstart quack doctor!"