Barber—if so advised—to institute a suit for specific performance. The Jury bowed and put their heads together again.
Mr. Lamb had reproduced his fair client in the full sight of the Jury. Mrs. Barber sobbed in a suppressed emphatic way. Mr. Barber was breathing hard—through his nose. I looked to my friend Lamb in an interrogative manner. He winked at me slowly. The three Judges were chatting together. It was an awful moment.
At length the Jury turned round, and, in answer to the regular question, gave in, through their Foreman, a verdict for the Petitioner—Mrs. Barber was free!
Mr. Lamb, with his accustomed deference of manner, gave his arm to his client, and conducted her out of Court and into the Hall, where the hard women on the steps cheered her as she passed. The lady asked her professional adviser if she had not done it well?—the more so as it was all stuff and nonsense;—Augustus had never beaten her at all. No; she would not go back in Mr. Lamb’s carriage. She had her own brougham at the door. I was thunder-struck on arriving at the portal of the Hall to see that the equipage in question was really there—and in it a party with whiskers. “Only my cousin Frederick!”
That afternoon a small company of sorrowful-looking men paced up and down Westminster Hall, in grim consultation as to what was to be done under these distressing circumstances. They were British Husbands! I was there!
Oh! Flora! Flora! Don’t!
*****
What came of that consultation, and what were the steps taken by British Husbands to procure a rectification of their frontiers, will appear in our next and following numbers, under the title of
THE SCIENCE OF MATRIMONY.
L’Empire c’est la Paix.
Gamma.
THE MONTHS.—APRIL.
Every year we say in February that spring is coming; and in March we show one another, from papa and mamma down to little three year-old Harry, that spring is come: but the real feeling, the sober certainty of the bliss, does not fairly take possession of us till the boys come home for Easter. All before that is mere preparation for the lads, and for the spring pleasures they seem to bring with them. Thus, in my family, spring begins usually in April: and with April, therefore, I open my account of our year, in our country home.
One of the first things we hear from the boys is, that argument has run high in the playground whether those were best off who were to spend their Easter in London, or in the country. There was finally a formal debate on the subject in the school club; and never had the oratory been more successful. The theatres were a strong fact in favour of London; and so were many of the exhibitions; and it was difficult to convince the town lads of the superiority of rural pleasures which they did not understand; so that every boy probably went home convinced that he was the most fortunate of the whole set.
