The Christmas Books of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh | Page 6

The two old ladies have taken the brevet rank, and are addressed as Mrs. Jane and Mrs. Betsy: one of them is at whist in the back drawing-room. But the youngest is still called Miss Nancy, and is considered quite a baby by her sisters.
She was going to be married once to a brave young officer, Ensign Angus Macquirk, of the Whistlebinkie Fencibles; but he fell at Quatre Bras, by the side of the gallant Snuffmull, his commander. Deeply, deeply did Miss Nancy deplore him.
But time has cicatrized the wounded heart. She is gay now, and would sing or dance, ay, or marry if anybody asked her.
Do go, my dear friend--I don't mean to ask her to marry, but to ask her to dance.--Never mind the looks of the thing. It will make her happy; and what does it cost you? Ah, my dear fellow! take this counsel: always dance with the old ladies--always dance with the governesses. It is a comfort to the poor things when they get up in their garret that somebody has had mercy on them. And such a handsome fellow as YOU too!
MISS RANVILLE, REV. MR. TOOP, MISS MULLINS, MR. WINTER.
Mr. W. Miss Mullins, look at Miss Ranville: what a picture of good humor.
Miss M.--Oh, you satirical creature!
Mr. W.--Do you know why she is so angry? she expected to dance with Captain Grig, and by some mistake, the Cambridge Professor got hold of her: isn't he a handsome man?
Miss M.--Oh, you droll wretch!
Mr. W.--Yes, he's a fellow of college--fellows mayn't marry, Miss Mullins--poor fellows, ay, Miss Mullins?
Miss M.--La!
Mr. W.--And Professor of Phlebotomy in the University. He flatters himself he is a man of the world, Miss Mullins, and always dances in the long vacation.
Miss M.--You malicious, wicked monster!
Mr. W.--Do you know Lady Jane Ranville? Miss Ranville's mamma. A ball once a year; footmen in canary-colored livery: Baker Street; six dinners in the season; starves all the year round; pride and poverty, you know; I've been to her ball ONCE. Ranville Ranville's her brother, and between you and me--but this, dear Miss Mullins, is a profound secret,--I think he's a greater fool than his sister.
Miss M.--Oh, you satirical, droll, malicious, wicked thing you!
Mr. W.--You do me injustice, Miss Mullins, indeed you do.
[Chaine Anglaise.]
MISS JOY, MR. AND MRS. JOY, MR. BOTTER.
Mr. B.--What spirits that girl has, Mrs. Joy!
Mr. J.--She's a sunshine in a house, Botter, a regular sunshine. When Mrs. J. here's in a bad humor, I . . .
Mrs. J.--Don't talk nonsense, Mr. Joy.
Mrs. B.--There's a hop, skip, and jump for you! Why, it beats Ellsler! Upon my conscience it does! It's her fourteenth quadrille too. There she goes! She's a jewel of a girl, though I say it that shouldn't.
Mrs. J. (laughing).--Why don't you marry her, Botter? Shall I speak to her? I dare say she'd have you. You're not so VERY old.
Mr. B.--Don't aggravate me, Mrs. J. You know when I lost my heart in the year 1817, at the opening of Waterloo Bridge, to a young lady who wouldn't have me, and left me to die in despair, and married Joy, of the Stock Exchange.
Mrs. J. Get away, you foolish old creature.
[MR. JOY looks on in ecstasies at Miss Joy's agility. LADY JANE RANVILLE, of Baker Street, pronounces her to be an exceedingly forward person. CAPTAIN DOBBS likes a girl who has plenty of go in her; and as for FRED SPARKS, he is over head and ears in love with her.]
MR. RANVILLE RANVILLE AND JACK HUBBARD.
This is Miss Ranville Ranville's brother, Mr. Ranville Ranville, of the Foreign Office, faithfully designed as he was playing at whist in the card-room. Talleyrand used to play at whist at the "Travellers'," that is why Ranville Ranville indulges in that diplomatic recreation. It is not his fault if he be not the greatest man in the room.
If you speak to him, he smiles sternly, and answers in monosyllables he would rather die than commit himself. He never has committed himself in his life. He was the first at school, and distinguished at Oxford. He is growing prematurely bald now, like Canning, and is quite proud of it. He rides in St. James's Park of a morning before breakfast. He dockets his tailor's bills, and nicks off his dinner-notes in diplomatic paragraphs, and keeps precis of them all. If he ever makes a joke, it is a quotation from Horace, like Sir Robert Peel. The only relaxation he permits himself, is to read Thucydides in the holidays.
Everybody asks him out to dinner, on account of his brass-buttons with the Queen's cipher, and to have the air of being well with the Foreign Office. "Where I dine," he says solemnly, "I think it is my duty to go to evening-parties." That is why he is here. He never