The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth - A complete eBook in pages (90 / 300)

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The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth
Book, page 90 / 300

'Dear me, Miss Nugent,' cried Petito, Lady Clonbrony's woman,
coming in with a face of alarm, 'not dressed yet! My lady is
gone down, and Mrs. Broadhurst and my Lady Pococke's come, and
the Honourable Mrs. Trembleham; and signor, the Italian singing
gentleman, has been walking up and down the apartments there by
himself, disconsolate, this half-hour, and I wondering all the
time nobody rang for me--but my lady dressed, Lord knows how!
without anybody. Oh, merciful! Miss Nugent, if you could stand
still for one single particle of a second. So then I thought of
stepping in to Miss Nugent; for the young ladies are talking so
fast, says I to myself, at the door, they will never know how
time goes, unless I give 'em a hint. But now my lady is below,
there's no need, to be sure, to be nervous, so we may take the
thing quietly, without being in a flustrum. Dear ladies, is not
this now a very sudden motion of our young lord's for Ireland?
--Lud a mercy! Miss Nugent, I'm sure your motions is sudden
enough; and your dress behind is all, I'm sure, I can't tell
how.'--'Oh, never mind,' said the young lady, escaping from her;
'it will do very well, thank you, Petito.'

'It will do very well, never mind,' repeated Petito muttering to
herself, as she looked after the ladies, whilst they ran
downstairs. 'I can't abide to dress any young lady who says
never mind, and it will do very well. That, and her never
talking to one confiDANtially, or trusting one with the least bit
of her secrets, is the thing I can't put up with from Miss
Nugent; and Miss Broadhurst holding the pins to me, as much as to
say, Do your business, Petito, and don't talk.--Now, that's so
impertinent, as if one wasn't the same flesh and blood, and had
not as good a right to talk of everything, and hear of
everything, as themselves. And Mrs. Broadhurst, too, cabinet-
councilling with my lady, and pursing up her city mouth when I
come in, and turning off the discourse to snuff, forsooth; as if
I was an ignoramus, to think they closeted themselves to talk of
snuff. Now, I think a lady of quality's woman has as good a
right to be trusted with her lady's secrets as with her jewels;
and if my Lady Clonbrony was a real lady of quality, she'd know
that, and consider the one as much my paraphernalia as the other.
So I shall tell my lady to-night, as I always do when she vexes

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