BON GAULTIER'S TALES.
[MRS HUMPHREY GREENWOOD'S TEA-PARTY.]
Mrs Humphrey Greenwood was a stirring, lively, good-natured sort of person; had touched the meridian of her years; was mistress of a comfortable income; and possessed, withal, the privileged vivacity of a widow. Nobody gave nicer tea-parties than she; nobody managed to keep such a number of eligible bachelors on her visiting-list, and possessing, as she did, the nicest discrimination in drafting these in among the young ladies under her patronage, what wonder if no inconsiderable proportion of the matrimonial arrangements of her friends deduced their origin from these dangerously-seductive sofas in her snug little drawing-room?
It was in that snug little drawing-room that Mr Simon Silky first saw the future Mrs Simon; it was on one of those dangerously-seductive sofas that he found courage to put that question which procured him a better half, and a comfortable settlement for life for Miss Jemima Linton.
Miss Jemima Linton was still in that fluctuating period, between girl and womanhood, at which young ladies giggle a great deal, and seem to be always in a flutter, when Mr Simon Silky first met her. She was fair in complexion, with light hair and blue eyes; her face, in short, had all the delicacy of a wax doll, and nearly as much expression. She could say "yes, sir!" and "no, sir!" at the proper intervals in the course of a tête-à-tête conversation, and, when warmed a little into familiarity and ease, could even hazard an observation with reference to the weather, without changing colour above twice in the course of it. In a word, she was one of those excessively bashful and retiring young ladies, who always look as if they thought a man was going to make violent love to them, and who, if your conversation happen to diverge from the beaten track of the smallest of small talk, take fright, and are off as fast as possible to whisper to some of their companions, "La! what a strange man that is!"
This was the very kind of person for Mr Simon Silky, who was a bit of a sentimentalist in his way. When he met Miss Jemima Linton, the fair ideal on whom his fancy had often dwelt seemed to be realised. He came, he saw, and was conquered.
On entering Mrs Greenwood's drawing-room, one evening that he had been invited there to meet "a few friends in an easy way," having arrived rather late, he found the party already assembled. The fire blazed cheerfully out upon a bevy of tittering misses, who were seated on either side of it, whispering to each other in a timid and confidential tone, with here and there a young man amongst them making convulsive efforts to render himself amusing, while two or three putty-faced juniors, with very white shirt-collars, and very brightly-polished pumps—who had been called in to stop gaps in quadrilles, and render themselves otherwise useful—sat in the background, for the most part two on a chair, and speculating how many of the cakes that glistened on the table they might appropriate to themselves with any degree of decency. Mrs Humphrey Greenwood, the presiding divinity of this motley gathering, vulgarly yclept a "cookie-shine," was planted behind a brightly-burnished brass urn of liberal dimension, that hissed loudly on the table.
"Mr Simon," she exclaimed, advancing from her post of honour—" Mr Simon Silky, I'm so glad to see you; I really thought you had been going to desert us."
Our hero blustered out some inarticulate apology, to which his hostess of course paid no attention, but hurried on into the work of introduction.
"Mr Silky, Miss Silliman, Miss Gingerly, Miss Barbara Silliman, Miss Eggemon, Miss Jemima Linton; I think you know all the rest. Mr Scratcherd, you know Mr Silky." Mr Scratcherd grinned an assent. "Mr Silky, Mr Slap'emup. You'll find a seat for yourself somewhere. Try if some of the ladies will have pity, and take you in among them."