308 MATTHEW AND JEMIMA. 



" Known in the city ! A trader then ? An eleve of the desk ; a 

 disciple of the counter ; a mushroom ; a fungus engendered in the 

 hot-bed of traffic and corruption." 



" An English merchant/' said Evergreen, without very well un- 

 derstanding the figures of Sir Pedigree's oratory. " Against an 

 English merchant you can have nothing to allege." 



" Why/* continued the imperturbable baronet, " if we took a 

 merchant on his own estimate, he would indeed be an invaluable 

 character ; but fortunately, young gentleman, we can refer, in this 

 matter, to more impartial authority. One of our greatest statesmen 

 cautions us against a class of men, ' whose God is their gold ; their 

 country their invoice ; their desk their altar ; their ledger their bible; 

 their church the exchange ; and who have faith in no one but their 

 banker/ " 



Never, in Evergreen's hearing, had the sanctity of the Royal Ex- 

 change been so profaned ; but, he was doomed to further suffering, 

 for, the baronet having once got into " King Cambyses' vein," felt 

 no disposition to stop. " I should regret much," he continued, " if 

 a scion of the house of MacDusty, remote though it be, should 

 form any such demeaning connection ; and, most fortunate do I 

 esteem myself, that I have chanced to pass this way in time to unite 

 with my worthy friend Mr. Robinson in forbidding the banns." 



Whatever ideas favourable to Jemima's designs might have been 

 previously floating in Mr. Robinson's brain, were, by such and similar 

 discourse, banished at once and for ever. She herself saw the utter 

 hopelessness of arguing with Sir Pedigree ; and submitting there- 

 fore to her fate was conducted to her chaise, leaving poor Evergreen 

 behind her " as melancholy as Moor ditch." And then our hero re- 

 mained despoiled of his mistress ; robbed of his money j his person 

 bruised and beaten ; his pretensions despised and ridiculed ; the call- 

 ing of his forefathers reviled ; and he himself left as it were in pawn 

 at a beggarly ale-house. In this forlorn and desolate condition he 

 had only one course to pursue dispatching a mission to his mother, 

 in which he briefly recapitulated his misfortunes, and requested an 

 instant supply of the needful. 



CHAP. V. THE CONSEQUENCES. 



IP joy and triumph reigned in the bosom of Mrs. Evergreen, as she 

 stepped into her carriage to ransom her hopeful son from the barba- 

 rian clutches of the northern Picts, far different were the feelings of 

 her aristocratic neighbour when the effects of her acting were brought 

 home to her. Here she stood the demolisher of her own fortunes ; 

 and what she intended for farce, or at most for genteel comedy, was 

 converted, by her mismanagement, into deep and bitter tragedy. 

 Nor were these feelings assuaged by the vehement 'exultations of Sir 

 Pedigree, and the more measured and temperate congratulation of 

 Robinson, who seeing in her lowering countenance, and constrained 

 manner, that all was not at peace within, insisted but very sparingly 

 on his own particular merits in the affair. But Mrs. Golightly's prin- 

 cipal annoyance arose perhaps more from the feigned penitence of 



