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Updated: June 28, 2025
M'Catchley had described with much eloquence the /Dejeunes dansants/ of her fashionable friends residing in the elegant suburbs of Wimbledon and Fulham. She declared that nothing was so agreeable. She had even said point-blank to Mr. Avenel, "Why don't you give a /Dejeune dansant/?" And, therewith, a /Dejeune dansant/ Mr. Avenel resolved to give. The day was fixed, and Mr.
M'Catchley was redelivered up to the Pompleys, whom he felt to be the last persons his interest could desire for her advisers, the thought of his low relations would return with calm reflection. Now was the time. The iron was hot, now was the time to strike it, and forge the enduring chain. As he led Mrs. M'Catchley after the dance, into the lawn, he therefore said tenderly,
Richard Avenel blurted out something very like an oath; and, half guessing that something must have happened that it would not be pleasing to bring immediately under the notice of Mrs. M'Catchley, he said hastily, "Excuse me. I'll just go and see what is the matter; pray, stay till I come back."
Richard Avenel. "I wonder what Mrs. M'Catchley will say?" Indeed, if the whole truth must be known, Mr. Richard Avenel not only gave that dejeune dansant in honour of Mrs. M'Catchley those soft words which but why not here let Mr. Richard Avenel use his own idiomatic and unsophisticated expression? "Please the pigs, then," said Mr. Avenel to himself, "I shall pop the question!"
King George the Fourth had presumed to admire Mrs. M'Catehley; but Mrs. M'Catchley, though no prude, let him see that she was proof against the corruptions of a throne. So long had the ears of Mrs. Pompley's friends been filled with the renown of Mrs. M'Catchley, that at last Mrs. M'Catchley was secretly supposed to be a myth, a creature of the elements, a poetic fiction of Mrs. Pompley's.
The lady resumed, "Say unsophisticated." "A tarnation long word," thought Richard; but he prudently bowed and held his tongue. "Young men nowadays," continued Mrs. M'Catchley, resettling herself on the sofa, "affect to be so old. They don't dance, and they don't read, and they don't talk much! and a great many of them wear /toupets/ before they are two-and-twenty!"
Will he go to Oxford or Cambridge?" "I have not made up my mind yet if I shall send him to the University at all." "A young man of his expectations!" exclaimed Mrs. M'Catchley, artfully. "Expectations!" repeated Richard, firing up. "Has he been talking to you of his expectations?" "No, indeed, sir. But the nephew of the rich Mr. Avenel!
"The devil they do, ma'am!" bolted out Richard, gruffly; and then, ashamed of his /lapsus linguae/, screwed up his lips firmly, and glared on the company with an eye of indignant fire. Mrs. M'Catchley observed him over her fan. Richard turned abruptly, and she withdrew her eyes modestly, and raised the fan. "She's a real beauty," said Richard, between his teeth. The fan fluttered.
M'Catchley, stretching forth her parasol, exclaimed, "Dear me, Mr. Avenel, what can they be all crowding there for?" There are certain sounds and certain sights the one indistinct, the other vaguely conjecturable which, nevertheless, we know, by an instinct, bode some diabolical agency at work in our affairs.
Pompley had her own favourite affinity, which she specially selected from all others when she most desired to produce effect; nay, even upon ordinary occasions the name rose spontaneously to her lips, the name of the Honourable Mrs. M'Catchley. Was the fashion of a gown or cap admired, her cousin, Mrs. M'Catchley, had just sent to her the pattern from Paris.
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