"Well," replied our peeress, "this I can say, that the duchess never told me a syllable of the matter, and I believe her grace would keep nothing a secret from me. This you may depend upon as fact, that the next morning my lord duke cried out three times to his valet-de-chambre, 'Jernigan! Jernigan! Jernigan! bring me my garters.'"
But previously I should have mentioned the very impolite behaviour of Mr. Burchell, who, during this discourse, sat with his face turned to the fire, and at the conclusion of every sentence would cry out Fudge! an expression which displeased us all, and in some measure damped the rising spirit of the conversation.
"Besides, my dear Skeggs," continued our peeress, "there is nothing of this in the copy of verses that Dr. Burdock made upon the occasion."—Fudge!
"I am surprised at that," cried Miss Skeggs; "for he seldom leaves anything out, as he writes only for his own amusement. But can your ladyship favour me with a sight of them?"—Fudge!
"My dear creature," replied our peeress, "do you think I carry such things about me? Though they are very fine to be sure, and I think myself something of a judge: at least I know what pleases myself. Indeed, I was ever an admirer of all Dr. Burdock's little pieces; for except what he does, and our dear countess at Hanover-square, there's nothing comes out but the most lowest stuff in nature; not a bit of high life among them."—Fudge!
"Your ladyship should except," says t'other, "your own things in the 'Lady's Magazine.' I hope you'll say there's nothing low-lived there! But I suppose we are to have no more from that quarter?"—Fudge!
"Why, my dear," says the lady, "you know my reader and companion has left me to be married to Captain Roach, and as my poor eyes won't suffer me to write myself, I have been for some time looking out for another. A proper person is no easy matter to find, and to be sure thirty pounds a year is a small stipend for a well-bred girl of character that can read, write, and behave in company; as for the chits about town, there is no bearing them about one."—Fudge!
"That I know," cried Miss Skeggs, "by experience; for of the three companions I had this last half-year, one of them refused to do plain work an hour in a day; another thought twenty-five guineas a year too small a salary; and I was obliged to send away the third, because I suspected an intrigue with the chaplain. Virtue, my dear Lady Blarney, virtue is worth any price; but where is that to be found?"—Fudge!
"We had at last the satisfaction of seeing
him mounted upon the colt, with a deal box
before him to bring home groceries in."—p. 48.