F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 44
dashing Baronet, he played our damsels about in agony, as an old
sportsman does a covey of ducks, wounding more in the head than in
the heart, and finally creating no end of a demand for matrimony.
To-day, all the town was positive, he would marry the beautiful Miss
Boggs; to-morrow it was not so certain that he would not marry the
brilliant and all-accomplished Miss Noggs; and the next day he was
certain of marrying the talented and very wealthy heiress, Miss
Robbs. Mrs. Stepfast, highly esteemed in fashionable society, and
the very best gossipmonger in the city, had confidentially spread it
all over the neighborhood that Mr. Stepfast told her the young
Baronet told him (and he verily believed he was head and ears in
love with her!) Miss Robbs was the most lovely creature he had seen
since he left Belgravia. And then he went into a perfect rhapsody of
excitement while praising the poetry of her motion, the grace with
which she performed the smallest offices of the drawing-room, her
queenly figure, her round, alabaster arms, her smooth, tapering
hands, (so chastely set off with two small diamonds, and so unlike
the butchers' wives of this day, who bedazzle themselves all the day
long with cheap jewelry,)--the beautiful swell of her marble bust,
the sweet smile ever playing over her thoughtful face, the
regularity of her Grecian features, and those great, languishing
eyes, constantly flashing with the light of irresistible love. Quoth
ye! according to what Mr. Stepfast told Mrs. Stepfast, the young
Baronet would, with the ideal of a real poet, as was he, have gone
on recounting her charms until sundown, had not Mr. Stepfast invited
him to a quiet family dinner. And to confirm what Mr. Stepfast said,
Miss Robbs had been seen by Mrs. Windspin looking in at Mrs.
Stebbins', the fashionable dress-maker, while the young Baronet had
twice been at Spears', in King Street, to select a diamond necklace
of great value, which he left subject to the taste of Miss Robbs.
And putting them two and them two together there was something in