In due time “Mamma” (Miss Freemantle) presented her blooming daughter to the happy Billy, who was attended to the hymeneal alter by his confidential clerk, Head-and-shoulders Smith. Big Ben, who was dressed in a blue frock coat with a velvet collar, white kerseymere trousers, and varnished boots, looking very like one of the old royal dukes, was the only other person present at the interesting ceremony, save Pheasant-feathers, who lurked in one of the pews.
The secret had been well kept, for the evening papers of that day and the morning ones of the next first proclaimed to the “great world,” that sphere of one’s own acquaintance, that William Pringle, Esquire, of Doughty Street, Russell Square, was married to Miss Emma Willing, of—the papers did not say where.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HAPPY UNITED FAMILY.—CURTAIN CRESCENT.
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THE PRINGLES of course were furious when they read the announcement of Billy’s marriage. Such a degradation to such a respectable family, and communicated in such a way. We need scarcely say that at first they all made the worst of it, running Mrs. William down much below her real level, and declaring that Billy though hard enough in money matters, was soft enough in love affairs. Then Mrs. Half-a-yard-of-the-table Joe, who up to that time had been the belle of the family, essayed to pick her to pieces, intimating that she was much indebted to her dress—that fine feathers made fine birds—hoped that Billy would like paying for the clothes, and wondered what her figure would be like a dozen years thence. Mrs. Joe had preserved hers, never having indeed having been in the way of spoiling it. Joe looked as if he was to perpetuate the family name. By-and-by, when it became known that the Countess Delacey’s yellow carriage, with the high-stepping greys and the cocked-up-nose beet-root-and-cherry-coloured Johnnies, was to be seen astonishing the natives in Doughty Street, they began to think better of it; and though they did not stint themselves for rudeness (disguised as civility of course), they treated her less like a show, more especially when Billy was present. Still, though they could not make up their minds to be really civil to her, they could not keep away from her, just as the moth will be at the candle despite its unpleasant consequences. Indeed, it is one of the marked characteristics of Snobbism, that they won’t be cut. At least, if you do get a Snob cut, ten to one but he will take every opportunity of rubbing up against you, or sitting down beside you in public, or overtaking you on the road, or stopping a mutual acquaintance with you in the street, either to show his indifference or his independence, or in the hope of its passing for intimacy. There are people who can’t understand any coolness short of a kick. The Pringles were tiresome people. They would neither be in with Mrs. William, nor out with her. So there was that continual knag, knag, knagging going on in the happy united family, that makes life so pleasant and enjoyable. Mrs. William well knew, when any of them came to call upon her, that her sayings and doings would furnish recreation for the rest of the cage. It is an agreeable thing to have people in one’s house acting the part of spies. One day Mrs. Joe, who lived in Guildford Street, seeing the Countess’s carriage-horses cold-catching in Doughty Street, while her ladyship discussed some important millinery question with Mrs. William, could not resist the temptation of calling, and not being introduced to the Countess, said to Mis. William, with her best vinegar sneer, the next time they met. She “‘oped she had told her fine friend that the vulgar woman she saw at her ‘ouse was no connection of her’s.” But enough of such nonsense. Let us on to something more pleasant.