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212520_The_Adve ... _Way_Through_The_World.pdf - OUDL Home

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60 A SHABBY GENTEEL STORY<br />

I T<br />

CHAPTER VI<br />

DESCRIBES A SHABBY GENTEEL MARRIAGE, AND MORE<br />

LOVE-MAKING<br />

will not be necessary to describe the particulars of the<br />

festivities which took place on the occasion of Mr. Swigby's<br />

marriage to Miss Macarty. <strong>The</strong> happy pair went off in a postchaise<br />

and four to the bridegroom's country-seat, accompanied by<br />

the bride's blushing sister ; and when the first week of their matrimonial<br />

bliss was ended, that worthy woman, Mrs. Gann, with<br />

her excellent husband, went to visit the young couple. Miss<br />

Caroline was left, therefore, sole mistress of the house, and received<br />

especial cautions from her mamma as to prudence, economy, the<br />

proper management of the lodgers' bills, and the necessity of staying<br />

at home.<br />

Considering that one of the gentlemen remaining in the house<br />

was a declared lover of Miss Caroline, I think it is a little surprising<br />

that her mother should leave her unprotected ; but in this matter<br />

the poor are not so particular as the rich ; and so this young lady<br />

was consigned to the guardianship of her own innocence, and the<br />

lodgers' loyalty : nor was there any reason why Mrs. Gann should<br />

doubt the latter. As for Mr. Fitch, he would have far preferred<br />

to be torn to pieces by ten thousand wild horses, rather than to<br />

offer to the young woman any unkindness or insult ; and how was<br />

Mrs. Gann to suppose that her other lodger was a whit less loyal ?<br />

that he had any partiality for a person of whom he always spoke<br />

as a mean insignificant little baby? So, without any misgivings,<br />

and in a one-horse fly with Mr. Gann by her side with a bran new<br />

green coat and gilt buttons, Juliana Gann went forth to visit her<br />

beloved child, and console her in her married state.<br />

And here, were I allowed to occupy the reader with extraneous<br />

matters, I could give a very curious and touching picture of the<br />

Swigby ménage. Mrs. S., I am very sorry to say, quarrelled with<br />

her husband on the third day after their marriage,—and for what,<br />

pr'thee ? Why, because he would smoke, and no gentleman ought<br />

to smoke. Swigby, therefore, patiently resigned his pipe, and<br />

with it one of the quietest, happiest, kindest companions of his

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