And you may suppose that the admirable woman
just named had a fine occasion for her virtuous conversational powers in
discoursing upon the painful event which had just happened to Sir Barnes.
When we fail, how our friends cry out for us! Mrs. Hobson's homilies must
have been awful. How that outraged virtue must have groaned and lamented,
gathered its children about its knees, wept over them and washed them;
gone into sackcloth and ashes and tied up the knocker; confabulated with
its spiritual adviser; uttered commonplaces to its husband; and bored the
whole house! The punishment of worldliness and vanity, the evil of
marrying out of one's station, how these points must have been explained
and enlarged on! Surely the Peerage was taken off the drawing-room table
and removed to papa's study, where it could not open, as it used
naturally once, to Highgate, Baron, or Farintosh, Marquis of, being shut
behind wires and closely jammed in on an upper shelf between Blackstone's
Commentaries and the Farmer's Magazine! The breaking of the engagement
with the Marquis of Farintosh was known in Bryanstone Square; and you may
be sure interpreted by Mrs.
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