298 MATRIMONY AND MOONSHINE. 



the world ;" an interesting phrase which signifies that their road has 

 been fortunately macadamized for them by their forefathers. He 

 had passed a certain number of years at a fashionable boarding- 

 school, and had been entered at one of our universities ; but, to his 

 praise be it spoken, such was his remarkable freedom from pedantry, 

 that you might have spent many a day in his company without the 

 slightest suspicion that he had even <( sipped" at these head-springs of 

 classic lore. Such was our friend. And Miss Jemima Golightly ? This 

 " fair defect of nature," as Milton, with as little truth as gallantry, 

 defines the better part of the creation, was of more lofty and aristo- 

 cratic pretensions ; she claimed to be second cousin, twice removed, 

 to Lord Mountcoffeehouse, the Irish nobleman whose virtues are so 

 fully recorded by Don Juan. There was, besides, a certain Scotch 

 baronet, who used occasionally to talk to her of " our family," as if 

 they were mutually descended from the same illustrious stock. Can 

 we wonder, then, if she carried herself haughtily ? But if the pride 

 of ancestry inflated, a straitened income as often depressed her 

 spirit, and kept it in a becoming equilibrium. And she was remark- 

 ably clever. She had imbibed all the fashionable learning of Baker- 

 street and Brighton. In short, she was so wise that our forefathers 

 would have wondered : 



" And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew, 

 That one small head should carry all she knew." 



CHAP. II. THE GARDENS. 



JEMIMA had been left to form her own opinions from the mass of 

 knowledge which had been opened to her, and acquire, as she best 

 could, what Johnson considers nevertheless the first requisite of edu- 

 cation the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong. The 

 consequence was that c< matrimony" was the primum mobile and 

 monopolizer of her thoughts ; and oftentimes, when demonstrating the 

 relative effects of centripetal and centrifugal attraction, her mind was 

 drawn away, in an irresistible manner, to the contemplation of some 

 charming dragoon, whose spurs and sabre happened to be that mo- 

 ment rattling on the Steyne. With these matrimonial sympathies 

 she returned to her maternal roof, situate in one of those small streets 

 which branch off from Baker-street ; and here the res angusta domi, a 

 rigid economy enforced in no gentle manner, did not remove any of 

 her antipathies to " single blessedness." Thus, in maiden meditation 

 that is, sighing for a settlement she observed, with no small pleasure, 

 the impression she had made on Matthew. His mother she knew 

 lived in the square ; and, although scarce more than seventeen, she 

 was already sufficiently initiated in worldly logic to deduce from this 

 circumstance that her son must be duly provided with that wealth, 

 the want of which contributed so much to the discomfort of her own 

 home. The following evening, therefore, after devoting more than 

 the usual time to her toilet, and fixing on that precise bonnet which 

 best set off her pretty face, she repaired to the square ; and her heart 

 began to flutter with anticipated triumphs when she found Matthew 

 was already there, and casting anxious and impatient looks at each new 



