some handsome present; and in the meanwhile, there is a parcel of fine lace somewhere amongst my boxes, which I collected for you. I dare say we could find something there that would please your Mrs. Tomkins"
"Tomkinson, dear; she is extremely distressed that you do not know her name, and I believe thinks you might just as well call mamma Lady Esk."
The parcel was soon found, and when Lord Teviot sent for Mrs. Tomkinson, and, addressing her by her proper name, presented her with a beautiful lace shawl, adding his warm thanks for her excellent nursing, she was completely overcome. After rushing up to her room, and taking a long survey of herself, she burst into a flood of tears, and then went down to the kitchen and made a cup of arrowroot flavoured with a double allowance of brandy, which she sent up with her duty to his lordship, and then returned to her looking-glass, which she visited at every spare moment during the rest of the day, snatching one half-hour for a letter to Mrs. Nelson, in which my lord's convalescence and real guipure, and my lady's goodness and the becomingness of black lace, were much mixed up together. The threatened lawsuit had now got into the newspapers, and become general property; so Mrs. Tomkinson added a fierce postscript, expressing her belief that Mr. Lorimer was "a vile imposture," and her hopes that she should live to see him hanged for forgery, and she should certainly not wear her black shawl as mourning for him indeed.
