Miss Bridget Jones, a poor curate’s daughter in Wales, comes into all Hunkington’s property, and will take his name, as I am told. Nobody ever heard of her before. I am sure Captain Hunkington, and his brother Barnwell Hunkington, must wish that the lucky young lady had never been heard of to the present day.
But they will have the consolation of thinking that they did their duty by their uncle, and consoled his declining years. It was but last month that Millwood Hunkington (the Captain) sent the old gentleman a service of plate; and Mrs. Barnwell got a reclining carriage at a great expense, from Hobbs and Dobbs’s, in which the old gentleman went out only once.
“It is a punishment on those Hunkingtons,” Miss Clapperclaw remarks; “upon those people who have been always living beyond their little incomes, and always speculating upon what the old man would leave them, and always coaxing him with presents which they could not afford, and he did not want. It is a punishment upon those Hunkingtons to be so disappointed.”
“Think of giving him plate,” Miss C. justly says, “who had chests-full; and sending him a carriage, who could afford to buy all Long Acre. And everything goes to Miss Jones Hunkington. I wonder will she give the things back?” Miss Clapperclaw asks. “I wouldn’t.”
And indeed I don’t think Miss Clapperclaw would.
SOMEBODY WHOM NOBODY KNOWS.
That pretty little house, the last in Pocklington Square, was lately occupied by a young widow lady who wore a pink bonnet, a short silk dress, sustained by crinoline, and a light blue mantle, or over-jacket (Miss C. is not here to tell me the name of the garment); or else a black velvet pelisse, a yellow shawl, and a white bonnet; or else—but never mind the dress, which seemed to be of the handsomest sort money could buy—and who had very long glossy black ringlets, and a peculiarly brilliant complexion,—No. 96 Pocklington Square, I say, was lately occupied by a widow lady named Mrs. Stafford Molyneux.
The very first day on which an intimate and valued female friend of mine saw Mrs. Stafford Molyneux stepping into a Brougham, with a splendid bay horse, and without a footman (mark, if you please, that delicate sign of respectability), and after a moment’s examination of Mrs. S. M.’s toilette, her manners, little dog, carnation-coloured parasol, &c., Miss Elizabeth Clapperclaw clapped to the opera-glass with which she had been regarding the new inhabitant of Our Street, came away from the window in a great flurry, and began poking her fire in a fit of virtuous indignation.
“She’s very pretty,” said I, who had been looking over Miss C.’s shoulder at the widow with the flashing eyes and drooping ringlets.
“Hold your tongue, sir,” said Miss Clapperclaw, tossing up her virgin head with an indignant blush on her nose. “It’s a sin and a shame that such a creature should be riding in her carriage, forsooth, when honest people must go on foot.”