"N—no. I think there are none. But you should go to concerts, if you like them, and to picture galleries. Be seen about a good deal; make people talk about you, and do not press your case before you have been talked about."
"Do you think I can persuade Timothy—I mean, his lordship—to go about with me?"
"You will have the carriage, you know; and if he likes he can sleep at the theatre; you have only to take a private box—but be seen and talked about."
This seemed very good advice. Lady Davenant laid it to her heart. Then she took off her magnificent velvet and put on the humble stuff again, with a sigh. Happily, it was the last day she would wear it.
On returning to the boarding-house, she found her husband in great agitation, for he too had been "trying on," and he had been told peremptorily that the whole of the existing wardrobe must be abolished, and changed for a new one which had been provided for him. The good old coat, whose sleeves were so shiny, whose skirts so curly, whose cuffs so worn, must be abandoned; the other things, which long custom had adapted to every projection of his figure, must go too; and, in place of them, the new things which he had just been trying on.
"There's a swallow-tail, Clara Martha, for evening wear. I shall have to change my clothes, they tell me, every evening; and frock-coats to button down the front like a congressman in a statue; and—O Clara Martha, we are going to have a terrible time!"
"Courage, my lord," she said. "The end will reward us. Only hold up your head, and remember that you are enjoying the title."
The evening was rather sad, though the grief of the noble pair at leaving their friends was shared by none but their landlady, who really was attached to the little bird-like woman, so resolute and full of courage. As for the rest, they behaved as members of a happy family are expected to behave—that is to say, they paid no heed whatever to the approaching departure of two out of their number, and Josephus leaned his head against the wall, and Daniel Fagg plunged his hands into his hair, and old Mr. Maliphant sat in the corner with his pipe in his mouth and narrated bits of stories to himself, and laughed.