But don't
be downcast, John; I believe, after all, you like me very well in your
way, and it is my misfortune to have no better counsellor at present.
To return to this Lady Blenkensop, you must know, she is a close
confederate of Duchess Sarah."
"What! of Sall Jennings?" exclaimed Craigengelt; "then she must be a
good one."
"Hold your tongue, and keep your Tory rants to yourself, if it be
possible," said Bucklaw. "I tell you, that through the Duchess of
Marlborough has this Northumbrian cousin of mine become a crony of Lady
Ashton, the Keeper's wife, or, I may say, the Lord Keeper's Lady Keeper,
and she has favoured Lady Blenkensop with a visit on her return from
London, and is just now at her old mansion-house on the banks fo the
Wansbeck. Now, sir, as it has been the use and wont of these ladies to
consider their husbands as of no importance in the management of their
own families, it has been their present pleasure, without consulting
Sir William Ashton, to put on the tapis a matrimonial alliance, to be
concluded between Lucy Ashton and my own right honourable self, Lady
Ashton acting as self-constituted plenipotentiary on the part of her
daughter and husband, and Mother Blenkensop, equally unaccredited, doing
me the honour to be my representative.
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