"What do you think, Miss Matty? What DO you think? Lady Glenmire
is to marry--is to be married, I mean--Lady Glenmire--Mr Hoggins--
Mr Hoggins is going to marry Lady Glenmire!"
"Marry!" said we. "Marry! Madness!"
"Marry!" said Miss Pole, with the decision that belonged to her
character. "_I_ said marry! as you do; and I also said, 'What a
fool my lady is going to make of herself!' I could have said
'Madness!' but I controlled myself, for it was in a public shop
that I heard of it. Where feminine delicacy is gone to, I don't
know! You and I, Miss Matty, would have been ashamed to have known
that our marriage was spoken of in a grocer's shop, in the hearing
of shopmen!"
"But," said Miss Matty, sighing as one recovering from a blow,
"perhaps it is not true. Perhaps we are doing her injustice."
"No," said Miss Pole. "I have taken care to ascertain that. I
went straight to Mrs Fitz-Adam, to borrow a cookery-book which I
knew she had; and I introduced my congratulations a propos of the
difficulty gentlemen must have in house-keeping; and Mrs Fitz-Adam
bridled up, and said that she believed it was true, though how and
where I could have heard it she did not know. She said her brother
and Lady Glenmire had come to an understanding at last.
'Understanding!' such a coarse word! But my lady will have to come
down to many a want of refinement.
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