Mrs. Gooch was married, and therefore perfectly welcome to the honour of having partly woven the bracelet which saved Lord Meersbrook's life; but, surely, a little flattery might render her willing to discover that Georgiana had a hand in it. Her husband was evidently a sensible man, and he might have given his wife a little more sense than she could have derived from her downright father and her silly mother-in-law, who were really as great a pair of noodles as ever were exhibited in the pages of a modern novel, under the cognomen of "amiable rustics." To think of the price they pay, and the charming company they bring; five pounds in jelly, ten in cakes—for, though he only offered to order them, I shall allow him to pay for them—two dozen of very fine sherry, and a dozen and half of choice Hermitage, to say nothing of the loan of things innumerable, and the gift of Lord Meersbrook, before any creature has set eyes on him since his drowning, whilst he comes fresh from the East a kind of young Sultan or Cham of Tartary; and to these gifts surely may be added the power that young Gooch possesses of sending to the journals (which are, nine times out of ten, horrible things, and will eventually ruin the country) a really elegant, well-written account of the affair. I wonder if he has any acquaintance with French history, and can talk of petit soupers, and the wits and beauties which reigned before the horrible revolution! I should not wonder if he had, strange as it may seem, and certainly it may
