fragment of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to her
maid; but you could easily buy all you see of her, in Bond Street; or
you might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape her, and make two Lady
Tippinses out of her, and yet not penetrate to the genuine article. She
has a large gold eye-glass, has Lady Tippins, to survey the proceedings
with. If she had one in each eye, it might keep that other drooping
lid up, and look more uniform. But perennial youth is in her artificial
flowers, and her list of lovers is full.

'Mortimer, you wretch,' says Lady Tippins, turning the eyeglass about
and about, 'where is your charge, the bridegroom?'

'Give you my honour,' returns Mortimer, 'I don't know, and I don't
care.'

'Miserable! Is that the way you do your duty?'

'Beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee and be seconded
at some point of the solemnities, like a principal at a prizefight, I
assure you I have no notion what my duty is,' returns Mortimer.

Eugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon him of having
presupposed the ceremony to be a funeral, and of being disappointed. The
scene is the Vestry-room of St James's Church, with a number of leathery
old registers on shelves, that might be bound in Lady Tippinses.

But, hark! A carriage at the gate, and Mortimer's man arrives, looking
rather like a spurious Mephistopheles and an unacknowledged member
of that gentleman's family. Whom Lady Tippins, surveying through her
eye-glass, considers a fine man, and quite a catch; and of whom Mortimer