"Indeed, sister, you have to thank his light-headed lordship for giving a
spirited end to your assembly. Could you conceive how preposterous you
and your friends looked sitting against the walls, mute as stockfish, and
suggesting nothing but a Quaker's meeting, you would make us your lowest
curtsy, and thank us kindly for having helped you out of a dilemma."
Lady Sarah, who was too much of a woman of the world to quarrel seriously
with a Court favourite, furled the fan with which she had been cooling her
indignation, and tapped young Wilmot playfully on that oval cheek where the
beard had scarce begun to grow.
"Thou art the most incorrigible wretch of thy years in London," she said,
"and it is impossible to help being angry with thee or to help forgiving
thee."
The saunterers on the willow-shadowed banks came strolling in. Lady
Fareham's cornets and fiddles sounded a March in Alceste; and the party
broke up in laughter and good temper, Mr. Dubbin being much complimented
upon his having detected Spavinger's boots.
"I ought to know 'em," he answered ruefully. "I lost a hundred meggs on him
Toosday se'nnight, at Windsor races; and I had time to take the pattern of
them boots while he was crawling in, a bad third.
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