“No,” says Maria.
“Yes,” says Fanny. “You know mademoiselle said” (mademoiselle at this moment was twittering her fingers, and, as it were, kissing them in the direction of a grand barouche that was advancing along the Square)—“you know mademoiselle said that if we were méchantes we should be sent to our uncle in India. I think I should like to go with you.”
“O you silly child!” cries Maria.
“Yes I should, if Clive went too,” says little Fanny.
“Behold madam, who arrives from her promenade!” Miss Lebrun exclaimed; and, turning round, Colonel Newcome had the satisfaction of beholding, for the first time, his sister-in-law.
A stout lady, with fair hair and a fine bonnet and pelisse (who knows what were the fine bonnets and pelisses of the year 183-?), was reclining in the barouche, the scarlet-plush integuments of her domestics blazing before and behind her. A pretty little foot was on the cushion opposite to her; feathers waved in her bonnet; a book was in her lap; an oval portrait of a gentleman reposed on her voluminous bosom. She wore another picture of two darling heads, with pink cheeks and golden hair, on one of her wrists, with many more chains, bracelets, bangles, and knick-knacks. A pair of dirty gloves marred the splendour of this appearance; a heap of books from the library strewed the back seat of the carriage, and showed that her habits were literary. Springing down from his station behind his mistress, the youth clad in the nether garments of red sammit discharged thunderclaps on the door of Mrs. Newcome’s house, announcing to the whole Square that his mistress had returned to her abode. Since the fort saluted the Governor-General at ———, Colonel Newcome had never heard such a cannonading.
Clive, with a queer twinkle of his eyes, ran towards his aunt.
She bent over the carriage languidly towards him. She liked him. “What, you, Clive?” she said. “How come you away from school of a Thursday, sir?”
“It is a holiday,” says he. “My father is come; and he is come to see you.”
She bowed her head with an expression of affable surprise and majestic satisfaction. “Indeed, Clive!” she was good enough to exclaim and with an air which seemed to say, “Let him come up and be presented to me.” The honest gentleman stepped forward and took off his hat and bowed, and stood bareheaded. She surveyed him blandly, and with infinite grace put forward one of the pudgy little hands in one of the dirty gloves. Can you fancy a twopenny-halfpenny baroness of King Francis’s time patronising Bayard? Can you imagine Queen Guinever’s lady’s-maid’s lady’s maid being affable to Sir Lancelot? I protest there is nothing like the virtue of English women.