Very odd—what could it be, then? must be something in the paper. And again the members resolved themselves into a committee of the whole house to ascertain what it was.
The first place that a lady would look to for the solution of a mystery of this sort, is, we believe, about the last place that a man would look to, namely, the births, deaths, and marriages; and it was not until the sensation had somewhat subsided, and Tommy White was talking of beating up the General’s quarter in Bury Street, to hear what it was, that his inseparable—that “nasty covetous body Cuddy Flintoff,” who had been plodding very perseveringly on the line, at length hit off what astonished him as much as we have no doubt it will the reader, being neither more nor less than the following very quiet announcement at the end of the list of marriages:—
“This morning, at St. Barnabas, by the Rev. Dr. Duff, the Right Hon. The Earl of Ladythorne, to Emma, widow of the late Wm, Pringle, Esq.”
The Earl of Ladythorne married to Mrs. Pringle! Well done our fair friend of the frontispiece! The pure white camellias are succeeded by a coronet! The borrowed velvet dress replaced by anything she likes to own. Who would have thought it!
But wonders will never cease; for on this eventful day Mr. George Gallon was seen driving the Countess’s old coach companion, Mrs. Margerum, from Cockthorpe Church, with long white rosettes flying at Tippy Tom’s head, and installing her mistress of the Rose and Crown, at the cross roads; thus showing that truth is stranger than fiction. “George,” we may add, has now taken the Flying Childers Inn at Eversley Green, where he purposes extending his “Torf” operations, and we make no doubt will be heard of hereafter.
Of our other fair friends we must say a few parting words on taking a reluctant farewell.
Though Miss Clara, now Lady Mainchance, is not quite so good a housekeeper as Sir Moses could have wished, she is nevertheless extremely ornamental at the head of his table; and though she has perhaps rather exceeded with Gillow, the Major promises to make it all right by his superior management of the property. Mr. Mordecai Nathan has been supplanted by our master of “haryers,” who has taken a drainage loan, and promises to set the water-works playing at Pangburn Park, just as he did at Yammerton Grange. He means to have a day a week there with his “haryers,” which, he says, is the best way of seeing a country.
Miss de Glancey has revised Barley Hill Hall, for which place his Highness now appears in Burke’s “Landed Gentry,” very considerably; and though she has not been to Gillow, she has got the plate out of the drawing-room, and made things very smart. She keeps John in excellent order, and rides his grey horse admirably. Blurkins says “the grey mare is the better horse,” but that is no business of ours.