As
for instance, at supper, when Aunt Rebecca was deploring the miserable
depression of the silk manufacture, and the distress of the poor
Protestant artisans of the Liberty, the general, with a solemn wink at
Puddock, and to that officer's terror, came out with--
'Yet, who knows, Lieutenant Puddock, but the weavers, poor fellows, may
be surprised, you know, by a sudden order from the Court, as happened
last year.'
But Aunt Rebecca only raised her eyebrows, and, with a slight toss of
her head, looked sternly at a cold fowl on the other side. But, from
some cause or other--perhaps it was Miss Gertrude's rebellion in
treating the outlawed Puddock with special civility that evening, Miss
Becky's asperity seemed to acquire edge and venom as time proceeded. But
Puddock rallied quickly. He was on the whole very happy, and did not
grudge Mervyn his share of the talk, though he heard him ask leave to
send Miss Gertrude Chattesworth a portfolio of his drawings made in
Venice, to look over, which she with a smile accepted--and at supper,
Puddock, at the general's instigation, gave them a solo, which went off
pretty well, and, as they stood about the fire after it, on a similar
pressure, an imitation of Barry in Othello; and upon this, Miss Becky,
who was a furious partisan of Smock-alley Theatre and Mossop against
Barry, Woodward, and the Crow-street play-house, went off again.
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