About once a year, as we have stated, there was occasion for a
christening at the Warren, and it happened that this ceremony took
place a day after Hobnell had received the letter of his
brother-in-law in town. The infant (a darling little girl) was
christened Myra-Lucretia, after its two godmothers, Miss Portman and
Mrs. Pybus of Clavering, and as of course Hobnell had communicated
Sam's letter to his wife, Mrs. Hobnell imparted its horrid contents to
her two gossips. A pretty story it was, and prettily it was told
throughout Clavering in the course of that day.
Myra did not--she was too much shocked to do so--speak on the matter
to her mamma, but Mrs. Pybus had no such feelings of reserve. She
talked over the matter not only with Mrs. Portman, but with Mr. and
the Honorable Mrs. Simcoe, with Mrs. Glanders, her daughters being to
that end ordered out of the room, with Madame Fribsby, and, in a word,
with the whole of the Clavering society. Madam Fribsby looking
furtively up at her picture of the dragoon, and inwards into her own
wounded memory, said that men would be men, and as long as they were
men would be deceivers; and she pensively quoted some lines from
Marmion, requesting to know where deceiving lovers should rest? Mrs.
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