Clang! At the end of thirty minutes, dinner-bell number two pealed from
the adjacent turret. I hastened downstairs, expecting to find a score
of healthy country folk in the drawing-room. There was only one person
there; a tall and Roman-nosed lady, glistering over with bugles, in deep
mourning. She rose, advanced two steps, made a majestic curtsey, during
which all the bugles in her awful head-dress began to twiddle and
quiver--and then said, 'Mr. Snob, we are very happy to see you at the
Evergreens,' and heaved a great sigh.
This, then, was Mrs. Major Ponto; to whom making my very best bow, I
replied, that I was very proud to make her acquaintance, as also that of
so charming a place as the Evergreens.
Another sigh. 'We are distantly related, Mr. Snob,' said she, shaking
her melancholy head. 'Poor dear Lord Rubadub!'
'Oh!' said I; not knowing what the deuce Mrs. Major Ponto meant.
'Major Ponto told me that you were of the Leicestershire Snobs: a very
old family, and related to Lord Snobbington, who married Laura Rubadub,
who is a cousin of mine, as was her poor dear father, for whom we are
mourning. What a seizure! only sixty-three, and apoplexy quite unknown
until now in our family! In life we are in death, Mr. Snob. Does Lady
Snobbington bear the deprivation well?'
'Why, really, ma'am, I--I don't know,' I replied, more and more
confused.
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