engine could be brought
to pour on such a conflagration. "Miss Newcome! my dear Clive," says
the confidant, "do you know what you are aspiring to? For the last
three months Miss Newcome has been the greatest lioness in London: the
reigning beauty winning the horse: the first favourite out of the whole
Belgravian harem. No young woman of this year has come near her:
those of past seasons she has distanced and utterly put to shame. Miss
Blackcap, Lady Blanch Blackcap's daughter, was (as perhaps you are not
aware) considered by her mamma the great beauty of last season; and it
was considered rather shabby of the young Marquis of Farintosh to leave
town without offering to change Miss Blackcap's name. Heaven bless you!
this year Farintosh will not look at Miss Blackcap! He finds people at
home when (ha! I see you wince, my suffering innocent!)--when he calls
in Queen Street; yes, and Lady Kew, who is one of the cleverest women
in England, will listen for hours to Lord Farintosh's conversation;
than whom the Rotten Row of Hyde Park cannot show a greater booby. Miss
Blackcap may retire, like Jephthah's daughter, for all Farintosh will
relieve her. Then, my dear fellow, there were, as possibly you do not
know, Lady Hermengilde and Lady Yseult, Lady Rackstraw's lovely twins,
whose appearance created such a sensation at Lady Hautbois' first--was
it her first or was it her second?--yes, it was her second--breakfast.
Whom weren't they going to marry? Crackthorpe as mad, they said, about
both.--Bustington, Sir John Fobsby, the young Baronet with the immense
Northern property--the Bishop of Windsor was actually said to be smitten
with one of them, but did not like to offer, as her present M--y, like
Qu--n El-z-b-th of gracious memory, is said to object to bishops, as
bishops, marrying. Where is Bustington? Where is Crackthorpe? Where is
Fobsby, the young Baronet of the North? My dear fellow, when those two
girls come into a room now, they make no more sensation than you or
I. Miss Newcome has carried their admirers away from them: Fobsby has
actually, it is said, proposed for her: and the real reason of that
affair between Lord Bustington and Captain Crackthorpe of the Royal
Horse Guards Green, was a speech of Bustington's, hinting that Miss
Newcome had not behaved well in throwing Lord Kew over. Don't you know
what old Lady Kew will do with this girl, Clive? She will marry
Miss Newcome to the best man. If a richer and better parti th