rs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son's marriage. In her
progress to, and happy arrival at, this resolution, she was possibly
influenced, not only by her maternal affections but by three politic
considerations.

Of these, the first may have been that her son had never signified the
smallest intention to ask her consent, or any mistrust of his ability
to dispense with it; the second, that the pension bestowed upon her by a
grateful country (and a Barnacle) would be freed from any little filial
inroads, when her Henry should be married to the darling only child of
a man in very easy circumstances; the third, that Henry's debts must
clearly be paid down upon the altar-railing by his father-in-law. When,
to these three-fold points of prudence there is added the fact that
Mrs Gowan yielded her consent the moment she knew of Mr Meagles having
yielded his, and that Mr Meagles's objection to the marriage had
been the sole obstacle in its way all along, it becomes the height of
probability that the relict of the deceased Commissioner of nothing
particular, turned these ideas in her sagacious mind.

Among her connections and acquaintances, however, she maintained her
individual dignity and the dignity of the blood of the Barnacles, by
diligently nursing the pretence that it was a most unfortunate business;
that she was sadly cut up by it; that this was a perfect fascination
under which Henry laboured; that she had opposed it for a long time,
but what could a mother do; and the like. She had already called Arthur
Clennam to bear witness to this fable, as a friend of the Meagles
family; and she followed up the move by now impounding the family itself
for the same purpose. In the first interview she accorded to Mr Meagles,
she slided herself into the position of disconsolately but gracefully
yielding to irresistible pressure. With the utmost politeness and
good-breeding, she feigned that it was she--not he--who had made the
difficulty, and who at length gave way; and that the sacrifice was
hers--not his. The same feint, with the same polite dexterity, she
foisted on Mrs Meagles, as a conjuror might have forced a card on that
innocent lady; and, when her future daughter-in-law was presented to her
by her son, she said on embracing her, 'My dear, what have you done to
Henry that has bewitched him so!' at the same time allowing a few tears
to carry before them, in little pills, the cosmetic powder on her nose;
as a delica