smile. She has had to keep the peace with Lacquerby Veneer for five-and-twenty years, and how was she to avoid becoming a humbug, poor thing? You are an uncharitable Italian, Signor, and deserved to be blown out of the bomb. But wait until you have had your lunch, and then you may think better of her.
Want to go? Nonsense. You must remain, Lorenzo—do you wish to get me into a scrape, when I have told you, in all the sacred confidence of friendship,-that I want to stand well with the Veneers? Besides, I should like to introduce you to Miss Flora. You don’t like the look she is giving young Rollestone. Stuff—go and make her give the same sort of look to you, or a kinder. She will, on small provocation, for she is an awful flirt. Don’t be afraid of the family—if Flora takes you under her wing it will be all right—she has a deuce of a temper, and is the only member of the household of whom her father is thoroughly afraid. She scratches the gilt off the gingerbread, sans cérémonie, I can tell you, and when he puts her monkey up, that excitable quadrumane bites. You don’t care about knowing her. Well, then, look at her sister, the mild beauty, Miss Isabella. Are you religious—I hope you are, Lorenzo—well, by a curious coincidence, so is she. You should hear the disturbance she makes, if her brother Charley there dares to bring out “Bell’s Life” on a Sunday, and howshe explains to himthat he is a heathen without hope in this world or the next, and the still greater disturbance she makes if the carriage is not ready to take her off to afternoon service at S. Polycarp’s. You do not like her either? Here, speak to Charley Veneer as he passes. They call him a good fellow, but his father does not think him so, simply because the young fellow has elegant tastes, will not do anything, and spends eight times his allowance. Fathers have flinty hearts. Well, Charles, a great day for the family. Let me introduce my friend, Signor Lorenzo. Ha! ha! very good indeed, Charley. What did he say, Signor. I laughed, but didn’t catch it? Asked if you were any relation to Lorenzo de Medicine. Ha! ha! Not a bad shot for a young fellow who reads “Bell’s Life.” Besides, it showed a readiness to be friendly. When good feeling prompts the joke a man is heartless indeed who criticises it—remember that sentiment; it will be very useful if you ever drop to be a freemason or churchwarden, or anything in the after-dinner line.
A bustle, signifying that we are to descend. Let a good many of the party go a-head, and then we shall get near the door, and can escape when you will. Dear, dear, how touching! See, Signor. Because it is a wedding-day observance, Mr. Lacquerby Veneer takes Mrs. Lacquerby Veneer under his arm, and down they go together, like bridegroom and bride, and will sit side by side, I bet, just as they did on the day in 1836, when the girl who had been Rosa Clare early that morning hated James Veneer (the Lacquerby prefix came later, to obliterate some recollections of a composition with creditors), and did not despise him as Rosa Veneer now does. Yet there is a gracious, proud, matronly look at the other matrons and the maidens, as she goes out. He does not act nearly so well, and yet at the moment he half believes that he is not half a bad fellow. Next comes Sir Habbakuk Zephaniah with Miss Flora—Rollestone offered his arm, but she took the city knight—Archy’s cousin has peached, that’s clear. Sir Habbakuk is not an elegant person, and his aspirates are capricious—what’s that he is saying about leaving his at in the awl? but if he can’t put in an H in the right place, he can a young fellow who wants a situation, and he is here because Charley must be taken care of. The Reverend Timius Mewler follows with Miss Isabella, but that’s nothing, Signor, if you are Isabellically inclined; the reverend man knows all about the family, and has his eye elsewhere. Mr. Whistleton and Mrs. Bob Parry—widow and widower—and she’d have him if she could, but she can’t, because he knew poor Bob Parry, and the home tyranny suffered by him, and that another friend, Clover (here he comes, making Miss Dolmantle laugh wickedly), said that if Parry took laudanum, the verdict would be Justifiable Parricide. Clover and Miss Dolly, aforesaid—that is a pretty girl, Signor, and Clover might do worse, and will, for it’s his way. Don’t say red hair, at least not until she has gone by, for she is a vain little thing, and likes to get men into squabbles about her. Next comes Mr. Katter Feltoe, the great traveller (at least he says he has travelled a great deal, but Professor Knowing doesn’t believe a word about those webfooted bisons which Mr. K. F. discovered in Mesopotamia), and he is telling some traveller’s story to handsome, large, white, stupid Mrs. Shoulders, who does not care a farthing about it, and does not know whether the Lebanon is in Spain or Seringapatam, but very much wants to get near Mrs. Bob Parry, to see whether that noble lace is what it looks. Now we’ll go down, as all the good places will be filled up, my Lorenzo.
Have you not had a good lunch, Italian, and is not the table elegant, with its plate, and its flowers, and its glass, and all the pretty things upon it? And the ladies are dressed very well, and laugh very pleasantly, do they not? And the wine is very good—now, don’t be a humbug, for I have seen you take four glasses of champagne. I knew all would be done well, and there sits Rosa Veneer by the side of her lord—they take wine together affably enough (yes, knock the table, Signor, we all will. Ah! bravo! brava! that’s right), and, perhaps, she is not thinking of the day when he threw the glass of wine in her face, and swore at her, or why. Do you see what is before them? A wedding-cake, and he puts the knife into her hand that she may cut the first piece—how courteously he hands it—I wonder whether that is the knife they say he threatened to throw at her on her birthday, eleven years back—pass me that bottle, I want to bow to her. Ha! now for some oratory. Who’s the friend of the family?
Sir Habbakuk did it pretty well, Signor, didn’t he? Talked about the heart too much, considering that he dropped two out of the five letters, and he should not have thrown his eyes on the ham, just as he spoke of hambition. But it was all very well, and I suppose they have nailed him for Master Charley, by that allusion to the appiness of promoting the hupward path of your friend’s