“No, no. Forget? not at all.” He was so disconcerted that he spoke in single words. “But such a change!”
“A year ago,” I said, “I was in russet and brown holland, with a straw hat. But this watering-place is not my native village, and I wear brown holland frocks no longer.”
“Save in a pastoral,” said Mr. Walsingham. “A shepherdess should always wear brown holland, with ribbons and patches, powder and paint; and a crook beautifully wreathed with green ribbons.”
“Gentlemen,” I said to my followers, “this is my old friend, Mr. Harry Temple, of Wootton Hampstead, Kent, whom you will, I doubt not, welcome among you. But what punishment shall be inflicted upon him for forgetting a lady’s face?”
This gave rise to a dispute on an abstract point of gallantry. One held that under no circumstances, and during no time of absence, however prolonged, should a gentleman forget the face of his mistress; another, that if the lady changed, say from a child to a woman, the forgetfulness of her face must not be charged as a crime. We argued the point with great solemnity. Nancy gave it as her opinion that the rest of a woman’s face might be forgotten, but not the eyes, because they never change. Mr. Walsingham combated this opinion. He said that the eyes of ladies change when they marry.
“What change?” I asked.
“The eyes of a woman who is fancy free,” said he gravely, “are like stars: when she marries, they are planets.”
“Nay,” said Nancy; “a woman does not wait to be married before her eyes undergo that change. As soon as she falls in love they become planets. For whereas, before that time, they go twinkle, twinkle, upon every pretty fellow who has the good taste to fall in love with her, as mine do when I look upon Lord Eardesley”—the young fellow blushed—“so after she is in love, they burn with a steady light upon the face of the man she loves, as mine do when I turn them upon Mr. Walsingham.”
She gazed with so exaggerated an ardour into the old beau’s wrinkled and crows’-footed face, that the rest of us laughed. He, for his part, made a profound salute, and declared that the happiness of his life was now achieved, and that he had nothing left to live for.
In the evening, a private ball was given in the Assembly Rooms by some of the gentlemen, Lord Chudleigh among the number, to a circle of the most distinguished ladies at the Wells. In right of my position as Queen, I opened the ball (of course with his lordship). Afterwards, I danced with Harry. When the country dances began, I danced again with Harry, who kept looking in my eyes and squeezing my hand in a ridiculous fashion. At first I set it down to rejoicing and fraternal affection. But he quickly undeceived me when the dance was over, for while we stood aside to let others have their turn, he began about the promise which we know of.