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Book, page 272 / 462 No person at the Wells was oftener at home and abroad than Mrs. Tattle. She had, as she deemed it, the happiness to have a most extensive acquaintance residing at Clifton. She had for years kept a register of arrivals. She regularly consulted the subscriptions to the circulating libraries, and the lists at the Ball and the Pump-rooms: so that, with a memory unencumbered with literature, and free from all domestic cares, she contrived to retain a most astonishing and correct list of births, deaths and marriages, together with all the anecdotes, amusing, instructive, or scandalous, which are necessary to the conversation of a water drinking place, and essential to the character of a "very pleasant woman." "A very pleasant woman," Mrs. Tattle was usually called; and, conscious of her accomplishments, she was eager to introduce herself to the acquaintance of her new neighbours; having, with her ordinary expedition, collected from their servants, by means of her own, all that could be known, or rather, all that could be told about them. The name of Montague, at all events, she knew was a good name, and justified in courting the acquaintance. She courted it first by nods, and becks and smiles at Marianne whenever she met her; and Marianne, who was a very little girl, began presently to nod and smile in return, persuaded that a lady who smiled so much, could not be ill-natured. Besides, Mrs. Theresa's parlour door was sometimes left more than half open, to afford a view of a green parrot. Marianne sometimes passed very slowly by this door. One morning it was left quite wide open, when she stopped to say "Pretty Poll"; and immediately Mrs. Tattle begged she would do her the honour to walk in and see "Pretty Poll," at the same time taking the liberty to offer her a piece of iced plum-cake. The next day Mrs. Theresa Tattle did herself the honour to wait upon Mrs. Montague, "to apologize for the liberty she taken in inviting Mrs. Montague's charming Miss Marianne into her apartment to see Pretty Poll, and for the still greater liberty she had taken in offering her a piece of plum-cake--inconsiderate creature that she was!--which might possibly have disagreed with her, and which certainly were liberties she never should have been induced to take, if she had not been unaccountably bewitched by Miss Marianne's striking though highly flattering resemblance to a young gentleman (an officer) with whom she had danced, now nearly twelve years ago, of the name of Montague, a most respectable young man, and of a most respectable family, with which, in a remote
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